


Cave Canem (Beware of Dog)

by AuditoryCheesecake, Nele



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Adoribull - Freeform, Canon-Typical Violence, Comrades in Arms, Friends to Lovers, M/M, The One With The Dog
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 10:48:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8010739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuditoryCheesecake/pseuds/AuditoryCheesecake, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nele/pseuds/Nele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rather than hiding in a city surrounded by people who might give up his location for a few gold coins, Dorian fled deep into the Fereldan wilderness. After two years scraping by with only his wits and his magic, the man who meets the Herald of Andraste at the Redcliffe chantry is not the same one who left Tevinter. For one thing, he has a dog.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Into the Wild

**Author's Note:**

> My contribution to the 2016 Adoribull Minibang! With art by the talented, wonderful [Fanjapanologist ](http://fanjapanologist.tumblr.com)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “He had been suddenly jerked from the heart of civilization and flung into the heart of things primordial.”  
> \-- Jack London, The Call of the Wild

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The very first section of this chapter involves Dorian hunting and killing a halla so that he has food to eat. If animal death bothers you, you can skip to the first "***" without missing a ton of story.

Winter was setting in, and it would be hard. Dorian blew on his fingers as quietly as he could, not daring to cast a spell to warm them. He was downwind of the herd of halla, but he’d learned the hard way that they could sense magic on the air just as quick as scent.

He was lucky to find them, completely wild, no Elvhan aravels in sight. He wasn’t sure how they’d found their way this far into the hinterlands, but he wasn’t about to let the opportunity pass him by. One halla could keep him fed for days, if he preserved the meat, and they never turned and fought like the rams here did. He shifted a bit closer to the herd, frowning at the snowflakes drifting through the air. He had hoped he’d have the chance to find another blanket or two before the snow set in.

The wind shifted, and one halla’s head shot up, followed by the rest. Dorian cursed to himself and pulled lightning frantically out of the air. The herd fled towards the cliffs. He grazed one-- he heard it scream and the scent of burning hair almost overpowered the copper-ozone taste of lightning magic-- but none fell.

He cursed louder, his voice echoing off the rocks around him and startling him. He grumbled as he set off after the the halla. 

Halla tended to run towards open spaces when spooked. Their horns made escaping into underbrush difficult, and they weren’t well suited to climbing sheer rock faces. Really, the hinterlands were a terrible habitat for them. All the better for Dorian, of course.

He cornered them in a pocket formed by cliff just a bit too steep for them to climb. They scented him, clearly, and were beginning to panic as he closed in. He was annoyed that he hadn’t aimed better the first time. He could see the injured halla in the group, but he couldn’t get a clear shot on it. Killing more than one would be wasteful; it could attract scavengers he wasn’t eager to tangle with.

The halla bolted again, streaming past him in a rush of white fur and panicked bleating. He moved quickly, the motion familiar and smooth. If someone had told him two years ago that he’d be using his favorite candle-lighting trick to kill his own dinner in the Fereldan wilderness, he’d have asked where he could find the combination of smoke and drink that had addled their senses so severely.

The injured halla fell in a heap, throat scorched. Dorian knelt over it, thankful it had died quickly. Nearly two years, and he still squirmed when he had to get his knife out.

He put his staff down, and started the process of skinning the halla, grateful as ever that having magic meant he could minimize some of the mess. He froze the edible meat as he butchered the animal. It didn’t improve the taste, but it would preserve it well enough until he was able to risk a fire. He sloughed the blood off the hide with a rough spell as well. He’d been building a nest of animal pelts in his tent to ward off the cooling nights.

He hummed to himself while he worked, an old Tevinter melody his voice tutor had drilled into him as discipline, to practice recognizing the difference between thirds and fifths. His singing had never been more than passable. He half remembered the words, something about ships, or love, or gathering flowers. There had been at least ten verses to memorize.

He daydreamed wistfully about the salt he’d traded his last gold bracelet for, from a travelling peddler heading north before the winds turned cold. That was more than a year past now, before his first winter in Ferelden, his second since leaving home. His father’s men had chased him from the border towns, through Nevarra, followed him somehow when he’d taken ship to Rivain… Ferelden was his last refuge, and by the time he got there he was so paranoid and fearful he took straight to the woods rather than linger exposed in the cities. He’d wandered south for a month with no real goal beyond “away.”

He had a goal now, though it was still a ways off. The White Chantry’s conclave, in the spring. A minstrel he’d heard in one of the last taverns he’d gone to claimed that the White Divine would meet with the rebel mages, and, well, he hadn’t rebelled against her circle, but the title apostate still fit him. If he could talk to her, this Divine Justinia, perhaps she could help him somehow. If he threw himself on her mercy, gave up all he knew about the Imperium, perhaps she’d let him spend the rest of his days in a monastery or somewhere else with more books than people. He could vanish into the drab fabric of Ferelden and never hear another word spoken in his father’s language.

He had to get through the winter first. He wondered if had been long enough, if he could sneak back to that farm by the river, take another blanket from the clothesline…

Something moved behind him. Dorian tensed, and pulled up a spark of fire into his palm. The scavengers here could be vicious, in packs or alone. It growled.

In a single motion Dorian turned and rose to his feet, scattering red sparks in arc around him. It was a move he’d developed to deal with packs of wolves, the fire usually scared off even larger groups. The beast in front of him flinched back but didn’t run.

It wasn’t a wolf. The shoulders were too heavy, the neck too thick, the colors all wrong. 

“Shoo.” Dorian hissed at the mabari. It felt strange to talk to another breathing creature after so long with only trees for company. “I’m not sharing.” He bared his teeth; perhaps he could communicate in the beast’s mother tongue.

The dog stared back at him, locking eyes for a tense minute. If it lunged, it would knock him down with ease, and even his barriers wouldn’t be enough to keep its teeth from his throat. Its lips lifted in a snarl and he waved his staff. It backed off a step.

“I don’t want to smack you,” he said in Trade. Maybe it would understand that. “But I will if you try anything untoward.”

The dog sat on its haunches when he spoke, suddenly unaggressive. It cocked its head the side, tongue lolling, and absolutely did not look cute. He eyed it for a tense moment, but it made no more threatening movements, just watched him with uncomfortably intelligent eyes.

If it wasn’t going to attack him, Dorian decided, he’d try to ignore it. It came up next to him and sniffed at the halla carcass as he finished skinning it.

“What are you doing out here anyway?” Dorian started stuffing the frozen meat into his knapsack. He frowned at a weak point on the seam where the stitching was starting to pull. He didn’t have any more thread. “Shouldn’t you be curled up by a fire with a nice Fereldan family?”

The dog whined, and Dorian felt, irrationally, like he’d said something unkind and thoughtless. He frowned at the beast. It was dirty, and he could see the faint impression of ribs along its body. He didn’t know much about the national dog of Ferelden, but he felt like this one was particularly large and malnourished to boot. Its brown eyes were round and beseeching. “I can’t promise you extra food, you know. I’m not in the market for a pet.”

The beast barked happily and pranced around him. Dorian wasn’t charmed. “You’re filthy.” He groused, and handed it a leg bone from the halla. “You certainly won’t be sharing my bed.”

***

Dorian woke up warm. Too warm, considering the winds that had been whistling outside his little cave when he went to sleep. He groaned and rolled over, pushing at the heavy body next to him. “Gemma, you Maker-forsaken mutt, my legs are going numb.”

She licked his face, and he swatted ineffectually at her. “I do need to walk today, you know.” Dorian shoved at her furry shoulder until she rolled onto her back with a whine. He stroked her stomach, dismayed to find the fur matted with mud and burrs. “Did you go frolicking through the fields again last night? I’m going to have to wash you before we leave, I suppose.” She whined at him again, and he pushed himself to a sitting position. “We might be living in a cave, but we aren’t savages.” She huffed in response.

“I’ll make sure the water is warmer this time,” he assured her as he puttered around his little almost-home. He’d never have survived without his magic, but he’d become perversely proud of just how well he had managed to do. It would have horrified him once, to be sure, and he still dreamt of featherbeds and magical plumbing, but survival was far more important than vanity.

His little cave, which he’d widened and shored up with careful spells, met all his most basic needs. He had dug a deep firepit and mastered the art of slow-roasting meat and the scarce plants he scavenged; he slept on a scrupulously clean and remarkably comfortable pile of animal pelts; he had a reliable source of water, and the occasional fish, in the little stream that flowed nearby. He’d kept himself and Gemma fed, warm, and even reasonably clean throughout the months they’d been here.

And now, he had to leave it behind. The leaves were budding on the trees, and the days were getting noticeably longer. He had to find the Conclave, meet the White Divine, and start his new life. Again.

Rather than bother with a fire, he ate some of the fish he’d fried the night before. It was dry, and tasteless, despite his cautious experiments with the newly budding Fereldan flora. It was all he needed, not to mention it was all he had.

If only his friends in Tevinter could have seen him now; Felix would laugh himself sick. Dorian frowned and stood. He didn’t even know if Felix was still alive.

Pulling water from the stream and warming it in his hands, Dorian stripped down to clean Gemma, his clothes, and then himself. The stream was frigid, but better than coffee for waking up fast. From the patched and threadbare remnants of his knapsack, he pulled the last set of real Tevinter robes he had, and stepped into them. His fingers fumbled on the buckles, and they sat wrong on his body. They hung loose around his stomach but pulled at his shoulders and arms, tailored for a scholar’s body, rather than a survivor’s. Thank the Maker for the trend for bared shoulders, or he’d likely have ripped the seams. He had no mirror, of course, but he wondered if they looked as awkward as he felt. Well, at least no Fereldan hayseed would know that the robes fit wrong, and were two years out of style. He took them off and waited for his shapeless Fereldan tunic and leggings to dry.

He folded the robes and tucked them back into the bag, between his two books. One was a collection of Fereldan folk-tales he’d swiped off a bookseller in the only decently-sized town he’d dared to skirt through, and the other a combination journal and spell-book. He was proud of the ink he’d concocted out of berries and acorns, and the recipe for it (and the later revisions) was the first thing he’d written in it after setting up his semi-permenant home. He was running out of pages.

There was also a glass bottle that had once held perfume and now held ink, and he wrapped it carefully in a small strip of fennec hide. He settled his belongings into the bottom of the bag, and then carefully worked the focusing crystal off the top of his staff, wrapping that in fennec fur as well. Really, it barely helped, since the staff itself was broken. If anyone (who didn’t run screaming from him on account of his nationality and magic) asked, he’d say he broke it over the head of some impressive assailant. A bear, perhaps, or a thug in an alleyway. In reality, he’d slipped on a patch of ice, landed hard on his ass, and snapped his own staff on a convenient rock. Without the crystal, it looked an odd sort of walking stick, but not a magical one.

He shaved for the first time in months while he waited for his clothes to dry. Any sort of fire spell ran the risk of singeing the fabric, he figured, and then what would he do? He absolutely wasn’t stalling. Using a conjured slab of ice as a mirror, he scraped away the frankly impressive beard he’d worked up. He was rather delighted at the amount of moustache he was left with, and spent perhaps too long experimenting with styles. He had no wax, of course, so it drooped a touch, but he felt more civilized than he had in ages. 

Nor did he have the tools for a proper haircut, but he scraped away at the sides in an approximation of his old style. The top he was able to pull back into a little brush at the back of his head. He let it hang loose instead. The cool spring air raised gooseflesh on his freshly shorn face. He’d not be admitted to a party in Tevinter dressed like this, but at least he didn’t look quite so much like a wild mountain man any more.

The sun was high and Dorian felt horrifically Ferelden as he and Gemma set off down the mountain. He had a travel-worn bag, a makeshift walking-stick, a secretive past, and a massive, grizzled mabari panting happily at his side. He rather fancied he looked like the clever sort of hero in a Ferelden fairy-story. He was his own wise sorcerer, of course, because he was still Tevene.

He whistled a tune from his childhood and set his path east.

***

He reached the Temple of Sacred Ashes in the early afternoon, after walking for three days. His feet ached, the worn soles of his boots provided little comfort. At least it had been easy to follow the flood of people after he’d found the road.

He languished in a lower courtyard, far from the gleaming walls of the Temple. Glowering templars stuffed full of lyrium barred him from any further ascent. He and Gemma sat with a group of tried, travel-stained mages and shared their food. No one talked much, and Dorian was grateful for both the company and the quiet. It was almost overwhelming to be around so many people again.

He spent the night dozing against a tree, Gemma on his left, cloak wrapped tight around him. No mage would be getting near the Divine, he’d been told. The chances of assassination were too great. In the afternoon, she would go to a balcony and bless the congrated rebels, because the Maker loved all his children, especially those who repented their sins.

How different things were here.

A charming young man named Aerin woke him in the morning, and offered to share his breakfast. Dorian learned about Aerin’s part in the conflicts (of course Dorian was impressed that he’d fought off two Templars! How dashing!) and was deflecting questions about his own past when the temple exploded in a column of light.

It felt almost like it came in waves: a bright green light that Dorian had never seen in the waking world, a deep, thrumming blast of noise that he felt in his bones, a billowing cloud of flame, a twisting, terrifying ripping in the fabric of the Veil that he felt in his blood.

Maybe it was his Tevene training, that made him fundamentally more comfortable with his magic. Maybe it was that he’d been living off the land and his magic came more quickly to his defense. Maybe it was sheer dumb luck.

In any case, when he lifted his face from Gemma’s side, dropping the shields he’d thrown up on instinct, most of the people around him were dead.

There was panic, there were even demons, more than he’d ever seen at once outside the Fade, and Dorian and Gemma left as quickly as they could.

***

He was surprised, but pleased, to find Felix still alive.

His joy soured quickly.


	2. Of Mabari and Men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.”  
> \-- John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men

The Iron Bull didn’t go to Redcliffe with the Herald, so he first heard about the ‘Vint mage second-hand from Sera. “Too flashy,” she growled when Varric brought him up. “Weird magic. Made me all prickly. Kills demons all right though.”

The Bull sat back and listened to the increasingly improbable stories she and Varric traded like the coins in their games of diamondback, and watched the Inquisition growing out of the corner of his eye. It was valuable information, and a valuable habit, to catalouge everyone around him, to learn their strengths and weaknesses. He was always a little surprised at all the lying everyone did outside the Qun, and how everyone seemed to expect it, but never actually catch on when they were being lied to. Like how the Herald was all starry-eyed over her pet Grey Warden, like how the the retired templar shivered in his smalls and everyone pretended it was a good idea to lead an army and fight an addiction at the same time.

The mages came to Haven; a long, bedraggled train of them. The Bull leaned on his axe and watched the once-rebels, now allies of the Inquisition, at the Herald’s word. 

The Iron Bull didn’t like it. He wasn’t comfortable around so much magic. There was far too much potential for trouble. Fighting mages was one thing, but his work rarely brought him into contact with abominations. His Chargers weren’t Templars, they fought mostly mercenaries hired by their employers’ enemies. Being surrounded by mages, the desperate sort who’d sell themselves to a Magister, that was different. It was a recipe for disaster.

Some of the mages looked like trouble: shifty, nervous, gripping their staves too tightly. They shied away from the small group of templars near Haven’s gate. The Iron Bull marked each face. 

There were also children, which surprised him. These were rebels and fighters. Anyone with sense would keep children so young away from battle. The smallest he could see couldn’t be old enough to leave a tamassran’s care… but they were still mages. Still dangerous. Perhaps more dangerous than a trained adult, like young snakes that bit with all their venom. They feared more, would be easier prey for demons. He marked their faces, and the faces of those who held their hands and carried them as well.

He identified the ‘Vint without Sera’s help, though she pulled on his arm and pointed out the man as soon as she saw him, a few moments after the Iron Bull. He stood out from the others, just as travel-worn, if not more, but aloof, almost haughty. He was clearly Tevene, all white leather and brown skin. His only concession to the snow that flurried in the air was a long cloak that hung from one shoulder. Of all things, a scruffy mabari stood next to him, the ‘Vint’s hand on the beast’s head. The other mages skirted wide around him with tight expressions. One spat at his feet as she passed. The dog snarled, the Bull could see its lips peeling back over wide teeth, but the ‘Vint’s face remained stony.

The rebel mages were happy to be at Haven, and chattered in relieved groups as they spread out, setting up tents, locating the little tavern. The ‘Vint mage stood alone, and watchful. The Bull saw when the mage’s eyes, flickering across the front of Haven’s wooden wall, landed on Sera and himself, how they narrowed and slipped away. 

“That’s him,” Sera said. “Still looks like fancy shite. Dog’s nice.” The Bull thought he looked tired, and as nervous as an imekari called before an angry tamassran. The mage’s hand stroked the dog’s scarred ear, but the Iron Bull could see the tension in it. He’d reach for his staff in a blink if he felt truly threatened.

The Herald approached the ‘Vint, making her way slowly through the throng of mages. They all wanted to shake her hand (the one without the mark) and thank her for saving them from the clutches of Templar and Magister alike. Adaar greeted the ‘Vint with a hearty embrace that made the man stagger, but he patted her on the back all the same, perhaps a bit awkwardly. She ruffled the dog’s ears, then took his arm and guided him through the gates, holding firmly behind his elbow like she thought he might run off. From the looks he gave her, the Bull thought it a wise move.

“Your pretty Herald likes him well enough.” The Bull grinned, and nudged Sera roughly with his elbow.

She blushed and swatted at him, sputting.

“No harm in looking.” The Bull watched the Herald and the ‘Vint pass by, nodding to them. Adaar waved cheerfully, and the mage nodded hesitantly back.

***

The ‘Vint mage was different from the others. He was all lightning and fire, bright, wide movements when he trained that were part focus, all show. He walked and talked and drank his wine like he was always being watched, and kept daunting, sparkling walls between himself and anyone who wanted to do more than watch. Not the Iron Bull. The Bull had no desire to get closer than he needed to.

He carried himself differently than the Southern mages. At first the Iron Bull had though it pride, the puffed-up Noble sort, and the mage certainly had some of that. But even the Bull, as healthfully wary of magic as he was, could see that being raised to revel in the self-destructive danger of it had made Dorian Pavus more comfortable than the circle mages ever could be.

He trained daily, in a copse of trees a few minutes walk from Haven’s front gate, and the Bull watched him sometimes. The Iron Bull had seen enough mages fight to know that the ‘Vint’s pride was not misplaced. Dorian Pavus was a master of his craft, for all he’d chosen a damn foolish one. The Bull could respect the work that had gone into honing the clean sweep of the mage’s staff, the control that was obvious in the way he spun and turned in the fire he summoned. Deadly, for sure, beautiful, just as sure. The showers of sparks were almost hypnotic. 

The Bull watched the ‘Vint in his quieter moments, as well. He drank alone or with the Herald, who talked enough for five, and sometimes with Varric, and the Bull watched them compare card games. They both cheated outrageously, though the mage called it “Tevinter rules.” 

The mage rose early, often before the Bull, and sat every morning on the rocks by Haven’s lake. He rested cross-legged and straight-backed, and faced the sunrise with his breath pooling in unnatural mist around his body. It’s was pretty creepy at first, but the Bull got used to seeing him first thing, lit by the dawn, since he was usually about forty feet away, in front of the Charger’s tents.

***

The mage didn’t make many friends around Haven.

A night with a scout here, a drink with Varric there, but most of the Fereldans kept him at arm’s length. The Bull thought the obnoxiously ‘Vinty robes spooked them more than the man himself. He was often in the company of the Herald, as well, which both protected him from potential trouble, and isolated him from potential friends.

He did have a softness for small animals, of all things, and fed the cats around the stables as well as the occasional elusive fennec. The Iron Bull wondered if he’d left pets behind in Tevinter. A parrot, perhaps, with bright feathers and a knack for repeating foul language. Pavus seemed the type to have a pet anywhere, considering the dog, a scarred, rough-looking Mabari that rarely left the mage’s side. It surprised the Bull a little. He’d have thought the breed too Fereldan for Pavus.

But the mage brought the rangy thing scraps from the tavern, and the Bull watched in the evenings when the mage sat at his lonely fire with only the dog for company. The dog would rest its head in the mage’s lap and the mage would lean against a tree. The Bull was too far away to hear, but he thought the mage sang to the dog.

***

The mage sat with the dog on the dock outside of Haven. He crouched in front of it, pretty face inches from its teeth as he rubbed a cloth over its front legs and across its chest. The Bull watched with his arms folded, not sure what he’d have to do if the beast decided it disliked the mage’s attention. He barely relaxed when the dog rolled onto its back, and Dorian continued rubbing at its stomach, pausing occasionally to rinse the cloth and the dog with water he lifted from the lake. 

The mage saw him watching, and beckoned him over. The Iron Bull went, cautiously.

“Would you care for a bath as well?” The mage said. “Gemma wasn’t sure at first, but she’s come ‘round. She likes lavender, don’t you, you sophisticated little catula?” The dog licked at his chin, and Dorian laughed.

The Iron Bull blinked, surprised by the lightness of the sound. It occurred to him he’d never heard the mage laugh before. 

“I’m good,” he said. Not that it was intimidating, but the dog was pretty large. Dorian worked his cloth between the pads of its paws, pulling away bits of dried mud. His hand wasn’t noticeably wider than the dog’s heavy feet. Its head rested upside-down in Dorian’s lap, jowls hanging comically away from teeth that even Bull could respect. “Nothing wrong with an honest day’s dirt.”

The mage’s nose wrinkled delicately, and the Bull thought he saw the dog’s do the same. “But when one has the luxury of cleanliness, it’s a crime to let it go to waste.” He worked a clump of dirt out of the dog’s fur. “The only good part of getting dirty is the chance to wash it off.”

“Oh, no.” The Bull couldn’t leave an opening like that. “The best part of getting dirty is _getting dirty_.” 

The mage rolled his eyes, but the Bull was watching, and he saw the way the mage’s gaze flickered over his bared chest, the way his throat pulled tiniest intake of breath before he turned back to the dog. “You’re welcome to your opinion, I suppose, coarse as it is.”

The mage pulled a bubble of water up from the lake, and held it in his hands until the chunks of ice that floated in it melted away. He pinched a small tail of it out with careful gestures of one long-fingered hand, and ran it gently over the dog until its coat was soaking. He took a bar of soap-- lavender, the Bull supposed-- from his pack and lathered its fur with firm strokes. The dog, still on its back, wriggled happily, and the mage murmured Tevene nonsense over it. The Bull watched, arms crossed. He’d never seen magic used so… domestically. Even Dalish didn’t treat her magic like a household tool.

“Are you just going to loom there? Civilized people often sit down to make conversation.” It could have been an insult, but the Bull chose not to take it as one. The tone was light enough.

The Iron Bull stayed standing. “What’s the point of this? The dog’ll just get muddy again next time it sees a cat.”

“Her name is Gemma,” Dorian’s voice was firm, “and she doesn’t chase cats. She’s a _lady_.” He rinsed the soap off the dog’s fur and ran softly glowing hands across its body. The dog’s coat fluffed and dried in their wake.

“It’s a dog.”

Dorian glared at him. “Now you’re just being rude.”

“I just don’t get it. Why bother washing an animal that sleeps outside? Why bother naming it?” He cleared his throat when the mage’s glare sharpened. “Why bother naming her?”

“Because she’s been my friend and companion for months now, and we helped each other survive the bestial Fereldan wilderness. Because she deserves a name.” The mage stroked the dog’s neck and chest. “Haven’t you any pets where you’re from?” He asked, and it was a genuine query, not a mocking one.

“No. What’s the purpose of an animal that depends on you for every need?” There were of course qalaba, but they served for food, not companionship. Humans and their useless types of pets had always struck him as unnecessary.

“No pets? No wonder you Qunari all scowl so much then.” He patted the dock. “Sit down, The Iron Bull.”

The Bull sat. “I don’t think I’ve ever told you my name. You been talking to people about me, ‘Vint?”

Pavus rolled his eyes again. “Oh, please. Like you don’t know mine.” Well, he had the Bull there. “Gemma, sit up, please.” The dog did, tongue lolling. Her wide brown eyes tracked the Iron Bull’s movements closely, and she cocked her head at him.

“You’re more polite to the dog than you are to me,” the Bull grumbled.

“She’s earned politeness. All of you’ve done is loom and insult the concepts of washing and pets.” He took one of the Bull’s hands in his own and the Bull startled, pulling away from the mage.

He saw the hurt that Dorian shuttered away before he sighed like he was dealing with a child. “I’m not going to curse you with a touch, Iron Bull. Just pet her. Put your hand on her head-- gently-- and stroke behind her ears.”

“I know how to pet a dog.” He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done it, though. “What does Gemma mean?" The question was impulsive. He knew what it meant.

“Jewel. She is one.” The mage’s hand rubbed over the mabari’s muscular, scarred shoulder. “She’s saved my life more than once.” He smiled softly at the dog, and she licked the side of his face with a happy snuffle.

“Pretty odd choice for a ‘Vint.” Bull wanted to know where she’d come from, as if knowing that could explain why this ‘Vint was so strange to him.

Dorian laughed. “Maybe she’ll convince these southerners I can be trusted. They do love their dogs.”

“I’m not sure even a Mabari can tone down your ‘Vinty nature, ‘Vint.” The Iron Bull chuckled.

“No, I suppose I’ll just have to be a cross-cultural enigma. What will I do next? An Orleasian mask, maybe?”

“Not if you want the Fereldans to like you. And if you cover your face, then how will anyone know how pretty you are?”

The ‘Vint preened. “You’re right, of course. Antivan leather, perhaps.” His eyes fluttered across the Bull’s face. “Do you really think I’m pretty, Iron Bull?”

With a jolt, the Bull remembered just who-- just _what_ \-- he was talking to. He took his hand off the dog, who whined and nuzzled at him. “You think missing one eye makes me blind?” He looked down at her, and she cocked her head like he’d asked her the question. “The pretty ones are the worst, you know. Watch out for this one.”

The dog’s stubby tail thumped on the dock, and Dorian chuckled dryly.

***

The Iron Bull figured his catalogue of Dorian Pavus was complete after a few weeks, until he rode out with the Herald and the Seeker and the ‘Vint to run errands in the Hinterlands. They surprised a pocket of templars, and the fight went smoothly. Swords, fire, the ‘Vint’s dog growling and snapping.

It was fine until the Bull pulled his axe out of a man’s shoulder (and torso) and the man stayed standing. The templar, already dead, already _fucking_ dead, because that was what the Iron Bull _did_ to people, he _killed_ them, turned around and ran his sword through his terrified comrade’s gut. Thankfully, there were no more templars to kill, so the Bull’s frozen shock didn’t cost his companions their lives.

The dead templar stood immobile, glowing an eldritch blue and steaming slightly. If demons steamed. Cassandra came over to inspect it, and said something complimentary to Dorian, who shrugged and dispelled it with a flutter of fingers. The corpse crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut.

The hair on the back of the Iron Bull’s neck stood up, and a prickle of something that wasn’t just fear ran down his spine. _Bas Saarebas_. Dorian fell into step beside Cassandra as Adaar rifled through the dead templars’ belongings, ignoring the Bull’s narrowed eye. 

He included it in the next report, of course. Sometimes his reports were like letters home, reminding him of places where people were sane and mages were leashed, where no one dabbled in dangerous, foolish magic that left the air heavy and the Bull’s heart hammering against his ribs.

The mage knew he was watching. He picked up on it even before Krem did, and the Bull knew Dorian watched him too. The Bull looked for his weak spots, poking at the parts of the mage that would make him deflect and recoil. He meant to scare the mage away, because his first instinct, strange and wrong, was to keep him close. 

They traveled together, sharing a tent most nights out of practicality, and the mage’s routine of reading and making notes in his little journal meshed too well with the Bull’s. They complemented each other in combat, worked well the field. The Iron Bull wouldn’t have minded camaraderie; he did fine with Dalish. But the damned mage wouldn’t stick to his _role_.

“Well?” Dorian said one night when everyone was deep in their cups, celebrating closing the hole in the sky. Sort of. The Bull didn’t trust the effects of so much magic. “Are you going to stop teasing and _do_ something about it?” The Iron Bull stared at him.

The mage stared back, eyebrow quirked, hands on his hips. He took a slow step towards the Bull, steady despite the wine he’d been drinking. Bull stood his ground with determination.

Dorian took another step towards the Iron Bull, eyes flitting across the Bull’s body and lingering unashamedly on his chest, his waist, his lips. He kept taking those slow steps until he was close enough to reach out and trail a finger along the leather of the Bull’s harness.

“I know you watch me,” Dorian said, voice low and sweet. “And who could blame you? Wouldn’t you like a chance to touch? I think, for all our differences, we could find some… common ground.” His hand slipped off the leather to rest lightly on the Bull’s skin. He wondered if the shock he felt was magic or his imagination, and if it was madness not to care.

The Iron Bull clenched his hands at his side, to keep from touching the mage.

Dorian saw the movement and dropped his hand quickly, stepping back out of the Bull’s reach. “Ah well, no hard feelings. I understand that I’m the sort The Iron Bull wouldn’t want to fall in with. Not too closely, at least.” He shrugged expressively and turned away with a little laugh.

The Bull watched him go to a fire, slide onto a log between Varric and a scout still in full uniform. He could see the way the mage threw his head back and laughed at something the dwarf said, how he pulled lightly at the scout’s scarf, how Gemma dropped her head on the mage’s knee. Dorian did not look back at Bull.

The Iron Bull returned to his Chargers, tamping down on the regret that bubbled up in his chest, and ignored how the places where the mage had touched him were still warm.

Of course, then Haven was under attack, and there was no time to worry about little mages and the madness they offered.


	3. When the White Winds Blow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives."  
> \-- George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

Dorian wished desperately for a real cloak, and refused to shiver. Haven was gone, but there were bigger and better things ahead of them, apparently. A castle, according to Solas. A new start, according to Adaar. He’d settle for walls, a respite from the biting wind.

He dug a pit in the snow on the first night after they found Adaar, when it was clear the company was staying still for some time. Keeping his little fire lit was easy, since it was a flame bound in place with the Fade, rather than wood. The snow got inside his clothes and melted, leaving him clammy and shivering even when he dried it with magic. He dreamt of the warm, dry cave he’d left behind on a sunny day in the spring, of the soft beds and silken sheets he’d left behind in Tevinter years before that. All he had now was a wet dog to lean against.

The second night, he had a stroke of luck in the deep drifts of snow below the pine trees. He carefully carved out a dome under the frozen crust, freezing the walls of his little shelter to solid ice, and clearing it down to the ground. Completed, there would be enough space for him and Gemma both the be out of the wind for the night, and his cloak would be a decent insulator against the muddy earth.

“What are you doing?” Dorian shuffled ass-first from his little project. The Iron Bull was staring down at him with a mixture of amusement and genuine confusion.

“Making sure I don’t freeze tonight. Snow is actually an excellent form of insulation, if you’re not pressed right up against it.” Dorian stood, and wiped self-consciously at the mud on the front of his tunic. “It’s a trick I learned from a Fereldan mountainman. He may have been even more savage and foul-smelling than his countrymen, but he knew how to survive.”

“Seems too inelegant for your tastes.”

“Believe me, if there were feather beds available, that’s where I’d be. But sometimes one must make sacrifices in order to enjoy future luxuries. Corpses frozen to the sides of Fereldan mountains have few opportunities to indulge later.” He pulled his cloak tighter around him.

The Iron Bull kept watching him, expression inscrutable in the fading light. “So why’re you all the way out here? Are fires a disposable luxury now too?”

Dorian cast a glance at the body of the camp, where fires were indeed being lit, between rows of real canvas tents. He suppressed a sigh. “I do require a certain amount of untrampled snow to build my little palace.” The Iron Bull kindly did not contradict his description. “And, to be perfectly candid, I believe I have fallen out of favor with the few friends I have made. No Ferelden is eager to share their fire with a Tevinter magister tonight.”

“Good thing I’m not Fereldan then, and that you’re not a magister.” 

Dorian blinked at the Bull in confusion. 

“C’mon, Krem’s set up my tent, and it’s big enough for braziers.”

“What?”

“It’s warm in my tent. You can take your boots off long enough to clean them. I’ve got tea, and room for one more body besides.”

He dithered for a moment, but there was really no question. Maker knew what favor the Iron Bull might ask in return for a meal, or a night in his tent, but there was little Dorian could imagine being worse than sleeping in the snow again.

He followed the Iron Bull across the camp, Gemma at his heels. The tent was patched in garish colors and big enough to fit the whole of his mercenary troupe, Dorian was sure. It was a campaign tent, a mercenary captain’s tent, round and wide with a peaked roof. It was far more sophisticated than most of the triangular shelters that fit one or two bodies lying down. A trail of smoke snaked from the highest point of the tent, and silhouettes of figures moved inside.

Bull pushed open a flap of fabric and ushered Dorian in. It was blessedly warm, and lit with soft light from lanterns hung from the tent poles. It was so different from the night outside that he almost felt like he was walking into a Fade dream.

Varric raised a steaming cup in greeting, lounging by the fire in the center of the tent. “Come sit, Sparkler. Krem’s cooking isn’t half-bad.”

Dorian hoped his expression didn’t betray the warm emotions bubbling up inside him. Krem was stirring a pot of something over a brazier in a corner. It smelled deliciously spicy, like turmeric and cumin and other almost-forgotten Tevene staples. It had been _years_.

One of Bull’s mercenaries, Dorian thought he might be called Stitches, handed him a mug and a spoon with a sidelong smile. The angry elf, who Dorian knew for certain was called Skinner, glared at him across the fire. Well, if he hadn’t encountered some hostility, he would have been certain it was some sort of trap.

Gemma huffed and dropped the ground near the fire. She set her head on her front paws and went determinedly to sleep, and Dorian supposed that meant he’d spend the foreseeable future in this tent with Bull and his Chargers. He’d never been able to wake Gemma when she didn’t want to move. There were cots set up along the sides of the tent, and bedrolls piled in a corner, and he wondered if it would really be so bad.

He sat down between Varric and Gemma, and listened quietly to the ebb and flow of the conversation around him. The feelings of companionship and and trust washed over him, and though he still felt somewhat like an outsider, it was the most comfortable he’d felt since they’d lost Haven.

The Chargers, apparently, slept in a pile if left to their own devices, like students camping in the library before their examinations, or puppies. He claimed a cot with no competition, and spent the night warm and dry. It felt like a miracle.

***

Skyhold was the most beautiful thing Dorian had ever seen. It had _walls_.

***

The Iron Bull watched the Inquisition grow stronger. He watched as Dorian grew more comfortable, more popular, in fits and starts. The trip back to Redcliffe, which Adaar had not invited the Bull along for, sent him into a brief spiral. He seemed to emerge from it with a sharp focus, and the Inquisitor’s ever-vocal friendship. Sera didn’t tell the Iron Bull exactly what had transpired, since she seemed to suddenly grow protective of the ‘Vint. It made the Iron Bull curious.

There were plenty of rumors, of course, and he would have been a pretty shit Ben-Hassrath if he hadn’t been able to piece the truth together from them. It was just as needlessly cruel as he’d come to expect from bas, and from Tevinter in particular.

The mage was rarely alone once word got around just how thoroughly he’d cut himself off from the Imperium. He was pretty, and tall, for a human, and seemed to attract men looking for something exotic, just a little forbidden. Pavus indulged them.

The Bull didn’t deny to himself that he pulled a few of them into his own network of sex and unwitting informants. He justified it by telling himself he needed to know what kind of person would willingly put themselves that close to bas-saarebas, if there was some level of thrill-seeking self-endangerment to it. What were they looking for? What in them was drawn to such danger, even wrapped in such an appealing package? The Bull had never fucked a mage. 

The Bull kept tabs on his Chargers, of course, but he didn’t regulate their days beyond training. They were a discrete unit from the rest of the Inquisition, and not likely to forget it, so he was content to let them mingle. He was surprised when Dalish, of all people, started spending time with the Vint, sitting together in odd corners, on the battlements, in the garden, at the edge of the training field. They had struck up a strange sort of friendship while the Bull wasn’t looking, or more likely, while he was out with the Inquisitor, since he kept a close eye on the Vint whenever he could. Mages were dangerous, he reminded himself. 

Dalish and the Vint kept their little meditations unobtrusive, but never within the walls of the mages’ tower like the more respectful folk. They even picked up a few followers, and the Bull had to deal with a small flock of mages turning up at the edges of his practice ring, wanting advice from Dalish or to run drills with Krem. They were just circle mages, mostly, few had any real combat experience, but they made the Iron Bull nervous, and when the Inquisitor convinced the ‘Vint to help her whip them into fighting shape-- well, that was even worse. 

It was distracting. 

Pavus didn’t do things by half-measures. Every spell was flash and drama, every movement graceful and calculated. He used his staff like a pole-arm, like an extension of himself. He was constantly in control in the training ring, and it made Bull want to rip that control to shreds. 

He’d seen glimpses of the person behind the mask, someone with interests beyond arcane magic, massive history books, and flattering clothing. The clothing and books had been accumulating at a rate that alarmed and baffled the Iron Bull, but there was more to the Tevinter than material desires.

Dorian would perform, slowly and without magic, the motions of a spell for his enthralled audience, and guide one or two volunteers through the actions. Set your staff in front of your left foot. Grip it low with both hands. Pull the Fade up through the staff and spin from your right hip to build momentum. Trace this sigil-- it looks like “frost,” but it means… The Iron Bull almost resented how much he was learning about how magic worked, just by watching Dorian.

When his students’ attention began to flag, Pavus would stop talking, clear a space of people and demonstrate the completed form. Flames might burst from his staff, the ground might tremble when he set his foot down, anything might happen as long as it was dramatic and eye-catching and _powerful_.

And then Dorian would be the center of attention for as long as he wanted, answering questions, giving advice, and making the Iron Bull completely forget the drill he’d been running with the Chargers until Krem knocked him on his ass. 

Pavus revelled in the admiration, hoarded compliments and jealousy with a beatific smile. He basked in the glow with sparks still crackling at his fingertips. The Iron Bull watched the man’s eyes glitter behind lowered lashes, and shuddered. No human should be that much like a dragon.

***

Dorian had been a scholar before he joined the Inquisition. A powerful mage, yes, but not a fighter. He had focused on theoretical magic, equations and possibilities, not on war or even combat beyond the most ceremonial. His time surviving in the Fereldan wilderness had allowed him to hone certain skills, but he was more comfortable stalking through the wilderness than staring down a man holding a sword. His experience lent itself to elegant showmanship and hardscrabble survival, and not much inbetween. He had far less practical combat experience than most of the others who accompanied Adaar on her missions.

He stood at the edges of the battles, mostly, weakening enemies, raising corpses to bolster their forces. He kept a dagger close at hand, for the times when someone strayed from the fight and thought him an easy target, but he disliked the feeling of stabbing a blade into flesh, whether human or animal. He didn’t like getting blood on his skin.

The Iron Bull sat beside him one night in the Fallow Mire as he cleaned mud off his staff. He’d had to stab a wolf in the eye, and on top of the distressing nature of the experience, he was worried that his robes would stain. His meagre wardrobe wouldn’t withstand the loss.

“You need to learn how to take a hit,” the Iron Bull told him, warming his hands over the fire. Adaar was helping Sera fletch arrows on the other side of the campsite. Helping badly, by the sound of their laughter.

Dorian glanced sidelong at him. There was a long, shallow cut below the Iron Bull’s neck, but at least he’d cleaned it. “I have barriers for that. And, apparently, you.” He’d seen how Bull had intercepted a Terror that had leaped out of a rift in his direction.

“Yeah, well, I’m used to it.” He ran a finger under the strap of his eyepatch, readjusting it. “You need to stop flinching whenever something comes at you.”

“I assume you have suggestions?” He didn’t try to sound confrontational, and the Bull didn’t seem to take it amiss. 

“Practice.” Not an unreasonable piece of advice. “Get in a training ring with someone and work on close quarters combat. Work on figuring out what sorts of hits to take, what to doge, how to do it. Basic staffwork that isn’t memorized motions. It’s good to know how to take someone down without relying on your magic.”

“Are you volunteering your services?” Dorian asked. The Iron Bull had started to joke, recently, about Dorian’s skirts and the way he handled his staff. It indicated a new level of comfort with Dorian’s magic, perhaps. “How _magnanimous_.” He said it lightly, like they were at a salon in Minrathous, flirting over wine and the danger of it.

The Iron Bull blinked at him, and Dorian worried he’d just made a terrible misstep until the Bull’s face broke into a wide, slightly sly, grin, like he hadn’t realized Dorian was able to make that type of joke.

“Well?” He pressed his luck a little further. “What do would you? Swing a very large sword at me? Go a few rounds? Teach me how to hold my lance?”

“All that and more,” Bull said, leaning to Dorian’s space. “I could also give a few pointers about how to stab people with a knife or even using that blade at the end of your staff.”

The Iron Bull was tall, even sitting down. Dorian could not read his expression with the fire casting its fitful light. He could only tell than the Bull was intent on him, watching his face. His boldness flickered under the close scrutiny, and his response was breathier than he would strictly prefer. “It would be kind of you to take the time.”

The moment, with its sudden tension, did not pass, but the Iron Bull returned to his customary distance. “You can train with the Chargers, if you want. Drink with us after, even.” 

“Not private lessons?” Knowing that there was no one to overhear bolstered him. 

“And private drinking too?” Bull grinned. “We’ll see.”

Dorian smiled back, and felt like he’d just broken through some sort of barrier. He’d crossed out out the awkward no-man’s-land of Bull’s not-quite-cordial wariness and firmly into “friendship.” The Iron Bull only flirted with strangers or friends. 

“Here.” Bull unsheathed a dagger, slowly, from the side away from Dorian so as not to threaten him. “First lesson. If someone gets close, hold a knife with the blade at the bottom of your hand, not like you’d hold a sword. The shorter blade makes that better for slashing.” He mimed punching someone in, carrying the swing though so that the dagger cut through the air behind his hand.

He handed it to Dorian hilt first, and Dorian copied the way he’d held it, allowing the Bull to adjust his grip. His hands were quite large. Dorian had noticed that before, of course. It would have been hard not to. But the Iron Bull’s wide fingers were a novel sensation against his own.

He had occasion to use his new knowledge the next day, when a highwayman crept on him while he was occupied reducing her compatriots to horror-riddled wrecks. The Iron Bull laughed when he saw the blood on Dorian’s robes and splashed across his cheek. “Came in handy, did it?”

Dorian smiled weakly back, but felt more like vomiting. “I think I’ll leave the stabbing to you. I’ve had enough of blood.” He washed his hands in every pond and stream they came across for three days, and he knew the Bull was watching him, but he didn’t care.


	4. Sink Your Teeth In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The better I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs.”  
> \--Charles de Gaulle

Dorian took his mug from Cabot with a smile and left too much coin on the counter. He’d patch his own cloak and launder his own socks if it meant the barkeep gave him what he asked for with no unpleasant additions.

He crossed the room to sit with Sera, and yes, the Chargers and the Iron Bull as well. Blackwall gave him a look when he slid onto the bench across from him, but no one else seemed to have any complaints. Sera was telling a story of a girl she’d known in Denerim, exuberantly sketched with hands and facial expressions and sound effects. Maker, the sounds. He had no more than scientific interests in the particulars of her tale, but he was nearly in tears by the end of it.

Dalish pulled Sera to her feet and insisted that she help her carry the next round of drinks for the Chargers, and Dorian found himself next to the Iron Bull. It wasn’t unusual; they could very nearly be considered friends. They often rode side-by-side on the road, trading barbs and observations, they often sat together by firesides or bars, they often… talked. And their talk was often laden with innuendoes, with what Dorian would consider serious flirting from any other man.

But Dorian couldn’t decide if it was serious or not. Their interactions were still fraught with all the differences between them, and the fact that the Iron Bull was afraid of Dorian’s magic.

Of course he was, Dorian told himself, he was taught to see magic only as a weapon, a means to an end at best. The Iron Bull was intelligent enough to see that nothing Dorian did would be separate from his magic, from his past, his Tevinter heritage, and that was a wide gap for him to bridge. Comradery he could manage, perhaps even friendship, but more was needed for even the most cursory of encounters. It was one thing to trust a man in battle, another entirely to trust him in your bed. Dorian had no desire to break the trust he’d earned so far.

But Dorian certainly had other desires. And it wasn’t purely physical. He’d never admit it to a soul (besides Gemma) but even if the Iron Bull didn’t truly trust him... he trusted Bull. Oh, it was childish, beyond foolish to trust a Qunari, a spy, a person who was any one of the dozen things the Iron Bull was. And yet.

And yet, he moved closer to the Iron Bull and his radiating warmth, held up his mug of dark Fereldan beer and said, with his most charming smile, “care for a taste?” Subtle it was not.

And the Iron Bull’s scarred eyebrow climbed, pulling at the eyepatch. He smiled back, and took the mug, fingers brushing Dorian’s. “You should try this,” he pushed a short glass at Dorian, half-full of something clear enough to be water. “It’s Antivan, apparently.”

Dorian sipped at the allegedly Antivan stuff, and the Iron Bull laughed good-naturedly when he nearly coughed it out his nose, because _Maker_ , what were they doing to their alcohol in Antiva to make it taste like _that_. He reclaimed his beer from the Iron Bull’s broad hands, and took a hasty gulp. Embarrassingly, he coughed on that too, and it wasn’t just the Bull laughing after that. But it was the Bull’s hand, clapping solidly him on the back, and Dorian couldn’t quite hear Blackwall’s ribbing.

The Iron Bull’s palm landed on his upper back, and Dorian’s treacherous body shivered with want. Bull’s fingers, outstretched, felt like they nearly spanned his shoulders. _No_ , he tried to tell himself. _Don’t read into it_ , he insisted, weakly, when the Iron Bull didn’t move his hand away for a long second. Instead, he rubbed rough circles across Dorian’s back, leaning over him solicitously.

“Aw,” he cooed, “is that too much for you to handle, big guy?” Dorian snatched frantically at his mug as Bull tried to lift it out of his hands.

“I’ll show you too much to handle,” Dorian growled, and the Iron Bull laughed.

Sera returned, and shoved him forcefully against Bull, not pausing in her loud conversation with Dalish. Dorian managed not to spill his drink over the both of them, but he was shoved up against Bull’s broad arm. Perhaps his hand pressed on Bull’s warm chest, just a bit. He retreated, smoothing his mustache, but he could see Bull watching him with a familiar look in his eye.

It jolted through Dorian, leaving him slightly breathless. That was no joke. That was _want_. He met Bull’s gaze head on, tilted his chin up just a touch, yes, there, the slow curl of the Iron Bull’s lips promised many good things to come. Like a river that gradually picked up speed as its course turned toward the cliff, the comradery that he and the Bull and been cautiously building tumbled into _more_.

It seemed like a forgone conclusion after that. A hand on the Bull’s thigh, lingering just too long to be proper. Turning towards him, listening when he talked, agreeing with him, but not too much. Laughing at his jokes, allowing a brush of hand against hand, against ribs, against neck. The steps of this dance were the same the world over, he thought.

The Iron Bull’s hand rested against the base of his spine as they left. Was Dorian leading or being guided? It didn’t really matter. The door closed behind them, muting the noise from the tavern. The thin rim of a rising moon showed above the eastern wall.

They kissed for the first time in darkness, on the stairs outside Dorian’s room. The Iron Bull stopped walking suddenly, as if listening to something, and Dorian, a step above him, turned to ask what had caught his attention.

Thick arms wrapped around him, one at his waist and one at the back of his neck, and Bull’s lips were against his, soft and very nearly hesitant. Dorian pressed back eagerly, and standing on his toes, they were nearly of a height. He slid his own arms around Bull’s shoulders and pulled him close, reveled in the feeling of the strong body against his.

He closed his eyes and surrendered to Bull, letting him lead. There was no conquering, just soft lips and the scratch of stubble, the last hint of the Antivan drink still on his tongue. His hand stroked through Dorian’s hair, gentle. He kissed Dorian like they were youths at Wintersend, like it was its own event and not simply a prelude. He cradled the base of Dorian’s skull in his huge hand and kissed him, like they had all the time in the world.

An owl called in the garden, and Bull released him. Dorian found that his heart was racing, and put his fingers to his lips with a smile.

The Iron Bull watched him, and smiled back in the darkness.

“Come along, then.” Dorian took his hand and continued up the stairs, digging his key out of his pocket. Bull followed, latched the door softly behind him. Dorian’s one small window let in barely any light, not that there was much light to let in anyways, and the room felt tiny and close.

He kissed Bull again, a hand at his jaw. Bull’s fingers slid under the straps at Dorian’s shoulder, plucking at the ties. Dorian laughed. “Let me do that.”

He pulled his shirt off and dropped it on a chair. His hair prickled a little in the cold, and he stepped closer to Bull’s warmth. “Tell me what you want, Dorian,” Bull said, and Dorian realized he hadn’t spoken since they’d left the tavern. He touched a hand to Bull’s face, and was reassured to feel his mouth curved in a smile.

“Surely you can guess,” Dorian said. It didn’t seem quite right to talk too loudly.

“Maybe I want to hear you say it.” Bull’s hands had come to rest lightly at the small of Dorian’s back, thumbs at the bottom of his ribs. It was strange, to feel so encompassed. Dorian pressed closer, looked up at Bull’s smiling eye.

“Should we start small? I want your hands on me.”

Bull flexed his fingers. “They are.”

“See to it that they remain so.” He kissed Bull, and pulled him backward to the bed.

Bull pressed him down, leaning over him and filling Dorian’s vision. One hand tangled in Dorian’s hair, pulling his head back. He didn’t bother to stifle the noise he made. The other roamed across his chest and down his stomach. He arched his back.

“What do you want?” Bull asked again, his voice lower and more breathless than Dorian had heard it yet. Bull’s mouth was on his neck.

“Do you really need me to guide you through this?” His voice was not so steady either.

“No,” Bull chuckled. “But tell me, do you want me to fuck you? Do you want me to hold you down, work you open until you can’t remember your name?”

“Oh, Maker,” said Dorian. Bull’s hand cupped his cock through his breeches. “Yes.”

If he’d been able to open his eyes, he thought he’d be able to see Bull grin.

Bull let him up, turned him around, biting kisses across his shoulders and down his back. He tugged the rest of Dorian’s clothes off with no hesitation, moved him about with touches and words. Dorian sank into it, enjoying the strong hands on his thighs, his chest. Bull seemed to have taken his request to be touched as a challenge. His hands didn’t leave Dorian’s skin.

“Beautiful,” Bull murmured into the curve of his shoulder, and Dorian laughed. He twisted around to kiss Bull again, feeling the scratch of stubble against his jaw and lips.

He came held down against the bed by the weight of Bull’s body, gasping against the demanding pressure of Bull’s mouth. He didn’t forget his own name, precisely, but it had been a long time since a man put so much obvious effort into Dorian’s comfort as well as his pleasure.

He stroked gently at the soft skin above Bull’s hip when he felt Bull shudder still above him, and brushed his fingers across Bull’s sweaty brow as they lay side by side for a long moment afterwards. 

Dorian sat up slowly when Bull did, and watched with sleepy curiosity as he gathered his clothes from the floor.

“You can stay if you like,” Dorian said. “I’m not unaccustomed to sharing a bed, though Gemma’s been spending some nights in the stable lately.”

“If you want.” Bull paused in pulling on his pants. “I’m leaving with the Inquisitor in the morning though. I might wake you.”

Dorian stretched languidly. “I’ve already gotten what I wanted. And I’m a heavy sleeper, you’re unlikely to disturb me. But it’s up to you, Bull. I shan’t cling, if that’s your worry.”

The Iron Bull stayed, but he was gone when Dorian woke up. That was the way of things, he figured. Bull had other places to be and other things to do. They both did.

***

The Iron Bull circled Stitches, shield raised. He’d been lax with their training since they’d come to Skyhold. He’d left his Chargers to their own devices, and it was beginning to show. They were a mercenary company, and even their field medic needed to be able to hold a sword.

Stitches swung at him, a little wildly, and the Iron Bull knocked the blow away easily. “Square up!” He barked. “Keep your feet even and don’t come at me sideways.” Stitches backed up and advanced again, face set.

Bull suddenly, for no discernable reason, thought of Dorian. Dorian, stretched naked on his bed, sleeping soundly as Bull crept away. Dorian, hands grabbing at Bull’s shoulders, nails scraping over his skin. Dorian, gasping curses in Tevene when Bull gripped his hips. Dorian, warm and pliant under him, strong and demanding over him, Dorian, _Dorian_.

Stitches knocked him on his ass.

Bull rubbed at his forehead and sat up slowly. Everyone was staring at him. “Sorry, Chief.” Stitches looked confused about whether he should be proud. “Thought you were ready for me.”

He laughed it off and got to his feet. “Just making sure you don’t get too discouraged. Try again.”

Bull did his best to focus, but he kept expecting to see Dorian out of the corner of his eye, to hear Gemma’s deep bark, to have some sort of reason for this sudden preoccupation.

He set his feet and took another hit on the shield. Stitches’ blunted practice sword slid across the metal with an uncomfortable screech. He followed up with a kick at Bull’s shin, the good one, and his boot connected soundly. Bull wethered the radiating pain without flinching, and knocked Stitches back a pace with his shield. He bore down on the human for a breath before backing off again. “Don’t fight dirty if you can’t follow through with it. If your opponent has a weakness, use it.”

He raised the shield, shook off the distraction. “Again.”

It took entirely to long to figure it out. It was Stitches. Stitches smelled like Dorian and sex. Bull took a few steps back and let Stitches’ charge fall short, settled his feet and finished the drill.

It made no sense. The Iron Bull had spent two weeks in the Emprise with Adaar, and been back in Skyhold for one, they’d both gone their separate ways-- clearly-- but the memories lingered. Dorian had gotten what he’d wanted, he’d said that, and Bull had too. He wasn’t one to push for a repeat performance.

But the thing Bull couldn’t get out of his mind was the tiny sound that Dorian had made the first time Bull kissed him, and the way he’d looked under Bull’s hands. Sullen resentment pricked at him at the thought of someone else in Dorian’s bed. Bull wasn’t prone to jealousy. He didn’t like it.

***

He had a letter to send out, so he had a reason to be in the library. He didn’t really have a reason to go to Dorian’s alcove.

The mage was sprawled decorously on his chair, a book open in one hand, but his eyes were closed. The sunlight from the window cut a dramatic angle across his face, and seemed to catch on every piece of metal in his outfit, making him uncomfortably bright to look at. Gemma lounged on the carpet, chewing on something that might have been a shoe in a past life.

She raised her head and woofed softly at Bull when he approached, and Dorian stirred in his chair. He ran a hand through his hair and looked up at Bull with a genuine smile that added a note of warmth to the confusion twisting in Bull’s chest.

Bull leaned against a bookshelf, arms crossed, and watched as Dorian stretched languorously, raising his arms over head and arching his back. “The Iron Bull,” Dorian said when Bull made no move to open a conversation. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Bull forgot how to make small talk, if he’d ever known. “Stitches,” he said, voice quiet.

Surprise flashed across Dorian’s face, quickly followed by annoyance. “I don’t see how that’s any business of yours.” He had a finger in his book to hold his place. “You’re the Charger’s captain, not their keeper.”

“He’s my soldier, his well-being concerns me.”

Dorian’s expression darkened further. “Is sleeping with me bad for one’s health? How unfortunate for you, then.” He shrugged. “But you needn’t worry about prolonged exposure, Bull. I shan’t be inflicting myself upon you again.”

“It just seems odd. Krem next on your list, Dorian?” Was it wise to taunt a mage?

“Do you think this has something to do with you?” Dorian stood up from his chair with dignified slowness. “And they call me self centered.” He scoffed and picked up his book, turning his back on Bull.

“Does it have something to do with me?” Bull pressed.

Dorian’s back tensed. “You think so very highly of your skills, then? That one tumble with you would effect every tumble thereafter?” He laughed flatly. “Let’s not make more of that then it was.”

That stung more than it should have. “And what was it?”

“Oh? Have I offended your pride as well? Well, it only seems fair.” Dorian turned to face him with. “It was curiosity, and drink, and, in the interest of full disclosure, it _was_ a certain type of friendship.” The past tense was aggressive; Bull weathered it with folded arms.

“Tevinter gave you a screwed up idea of how friends work, I guess.” 

The expression on Dorian’s face slipped from haughty to exhausted. “And now we’re casting aspersions on my homeland. How original.” He rubbed a hand over his forehead, careful not to mess his hair or makeup, then began to turn away.

“You gotta admit, it’s suspicious.”

“Says the spy,” spat Dorian, turning to face him again. The mage didn’t close the small distance between them, just settled on his heels, ready to fight. Well, Bull was the one who’d come to him. “Who I spend time with is no concern of yours, Iron Bull. If I choose to sleep with the whole Maker-damned Inquisition, it’s not _any_ of your business.”

“I look out for my men, Pavus. Stitches is--”

“Spencer.”

“What?”

“You call him Stitches in the field, but he prefers his given name in more _intimate_ situations.” Dorian rapped his fingers angrily against the cover of his book, shoulders tense. “What’s the point of this interrogation? If you’ve come to warn me off your men, Iron Bull, I’m afraid I’ve half a mind to seduce them all out of spite.” He shifted on his feet, back ramrod straight, brows drawn together to glower up at Bull.

He’d lost control of the conversation, if he’d even had it to begin with. Bull rubbed the back of his neck. “Look, Dorian. That came out wrong. I just meant...”

Dorian’s gaze sharpened. “Are _you_ jealous?” He sighed and made a noise that sounded almost like laugher. “Well, I’m sure Spencer will be flattered. You needn’t worry, I won’t stand in your way. I haven’t any further designs on him.” He stepped out of the alcove, sliding his book onto a shelf with care. 

“I didn’t think you’d be so offended.” Bull put out a hand, placating. “I just meant to--”

He turned to the Iron Bull with one eyebrow elegantly arched, hands on his hips, chin raised, all his defenses in place. “It occurs to me that your intentions are immaterial. I’ll bid you good day, the Iron Bull.” He turned on his heel and strode away.

Gemma looked at Bull with her wide brown eyes, and he almost imagined her shaking her head at him in disappointment. “Gemma, _come_.” Dorian snapped from the top of the stairs, and she trotted away as well. Bull stared out the window, even more unsettled than he’d been before.

But he had letters to send. His orders from the Qun demanded his full attention.


	5. Twice Bitten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Friends show their love in times of trouble, not in happiness."  
> \--Euripides

He knew it was coming when he received the missive. An alliance? About as likely as a quabala standing on its hind legs and singing Orleasian opera.

Josephine thought it was a trap for the Inquisitor. She was right, of course. The trap was also for Adaar. The Qun was nothing if not efficient.

Dorian was worried. Bull could see it in the set of his shoulders, in the curl of his fingers on his staff, in the crease between his eyes. Dorian didn’t know the half of it.

Gatt was a surprise. He stepped through the pouring rain like an executioner, though it was clear he expected Bull to pass the test. He seemed sharper than Bull remembered him, like Seheron’s acid had burned away the last of himself, leaving only the knife-edge that the Qun required.

But the Iron Bull had been away from the Qun too long. Maybe he’d gone soft, as well as crazy.

It was a quiet sort of madness, and that was the really surprising thing. It wasn’t the red fury of battle, even though Bull could always feel that bubbling at his edges, and it still scared him. It wasn’t the empty fear of not having a role, not having a place in a greater scheme, though he knew that would keep him awake for as many nights as he tried to sleep.

The madness was that he considered the fear, the brokenness and uncertainty ahead of him, and knew that he could choose that. The madness was that he’d chosen his name for himself, and he didn’t want to give it back to the Qun. 

He should. He’d been raised to know, to understand, to welcome the sacrifice that the Qun demanded. He’d seen, first hand, the danger that lurked outside the Qun, how easy it was for the Tal Vashoth to lose everything to the madness. He was frightened. A sign that he’d already begun to slip, really. He should have been steadfast, he should have been able to stand on the hilltop and watch his Chargers fall. The Qun should have been the easy choice. It shouldn’t have _been_ a choice.

The Qun demanded obedience. The Qun demanded loyalty. The Qun had no space for a weapon that had broken itself on the volcanic shores of Seheron, had mended itself with a team of bas; a weapon was not a man. But Bull knew what he wanted, and though his hands froze, though he couldn’t take the horn and call the retreat, he knew what he wanted, and it wasn’t the Qun.

A voice that had been growing louder for months, his own voice, insisted that the Qun was _wrong_. The Chargers were worth more. His family, his kadan. His heart was worth more than the Qun.

He still could not call the retreat, and he hated himself for it.

He turned, desperately, to Adaar. He could see Dorian next to her, not speaking, just staring at him, and he couldn’t meet Dorian’s gaze. He’d see fear there, and judgement. Dorian would see his indecision, and hate him for it.

Dorian saw the world in black and white, in right and wrong. But so did Gatt, and so had Bull, until suddenly nothing was black or white, just red. Blood, fire, the damned corrupted lyrium; the Qun or his boys, his heart or his head.

Adaar held out the horn with a dark expression. “Save them, Bull.” She shook rain off her hair, and turned to Gatt as the Iron Bull raised the horn obediently to his lips.

***

Bull felt quiet, almost empty, in the wake of the assassins’ attack. Some of it was the saar-quamek. It made his body heavy and his head light, like it had slowed down the blood in his veins and the thoughts in his mind. Better than dead, of course, but not comfortable.

His friends (and that’s what they were, they really were his friends) were not quiet. Sera cursed the Qunari and clung to his arm, hissing that he’d saved her life and she’d be pissed if she never got to return the favor. Adaar was nearly incandescent with rage. She stomped all over Skyhold, scaring new recruits and visiting nobles until Bull convinced her to go on a dragon hunt. It calmed her down a little.

Cassandra and Blackwall and Krem were there in the sparring ring whenever he needed them. They were taking shifts, though they didn’t want him to know that. There was always a seat for him at any table in the tavern, and there was always someone ready to warm his bed.

And Dorian brought him books. 

Poetry, history, natural science, fables and novels from every culture. He dragged Bull to the library or showed up in his room with an armful of paper, smelling of dust and leather. Sometimes he’d read to Bull, or coax Bull into reading to him. Sometimes he’d just hand Bull a heavy, leather-bound monster and they’d sit quietly for an hour, Gemma dozing in a sunbeam on the floor. 

Bull looked for a message in the books Dorian gave him. Their subjects were wide-ranging, themes varying from day to day. He spent weeks looking for what Dorian might be trying to tell him. It wasn’t like he always handed Bull books about heroes finding themselves, or anything that vilified or even directly commented on the Qun. Sometimes it was trashy romance or erotic poetry, though Dorian never read those aloud, just tucked them almost absently into a pile of other things he thought Bull should read. Sometimes it was religious treatises on the many meaning of the Chant, but though Bull knew Dorian valued his faith, Dorian never lectured him. Sometimes they talked about what they read; Dorian loved to rail against out-of-date theories and sanctimonious scholars. 

It took Bull two whole weeks before he realized what Dorian was doing. It was obvious when he looked at it from the outside. Dorian was just trying to spend time with him. Dorian had been at the Storm Coast. Dorian was worried about him.

For some reason, that mattered.

***

Dorian was angry. Bull wished he could see it, because Dorian, truly furious, was a rare and beautiful sight. The Bull had seen it once, from a distance on the battlefield in the Emprise, when a behemoth had staggered towards Dorian’s flashing magic, swiping snow and rubble aside with its twisted not-hands to reach him. Its arm, wide and flailing, had crashed into the side of one of the rolling cages, and the terrified people trapped inside, the ones they been trying to save, were crushed in the space of an instant. Dorian had ripped the monster apart with force and fire, twisted the Fade so much that _Bull_ could feel it, his voice ringing with raw power, his body alight with magic.

Guilt had come after that, guilt and grief. Bull had found him after the battle, weeping over the body of a child that had survived the behemoth's strike far longer than the others, but not long enough for Dorian’s tiny well of healing magic to save him. The Bull had sat beside him on the snow, a nervous hand on Dorian’s shoulder, which shuddered with each heaving sob. He’d sat beside him in their tent that evening as well, as Dorian scrubbed his arms and chest with nearly-boiling water, though the child’s blood was long since gone.

The Iron Bull knew that grief, though he had always pushed through the helplessness and the pain to the next part: the red anger, the fury. Dorian lingered over the innocents far longer than the Bull ever had; did that make him a better man?

Bull had never been convinced that he was good. “Good” wasn’t a particularly important thing to be. He was good _at_ things, sure. Fighting, killing, drinking, surviving.

But Dorian cared about good, and Dorian was angry. He sounded close, as well. Bull focused on his voice through the wet, red pain of the reaver fury.

“If you die, you bastard, I will never forgive you. I will follow you into the Fade just to tell you that you are an idiot, and a bastard, and you are _not allowed to die_.” A cold trickle of magic ran through Bull’s body, and the battle-rush faded away, tightening to a sharp, pulsing pain in his gut. He tried to open his eye. It sounded like Dorian was angry at _him_. “I will hold your spirit in your body until the healers come. I can do that, you know, and you can hate me for it, but you can not die. You cannot leave me like this, Bull. I won’t allow it.”

The pain faded further, Dorian continued speaking, but the words got scrambled somewhere on the way to Bull’s ears. He thought he might be going into shock. His hands were cold, like he’d plunged them through the ice on the river. No, no, they weren’t in the Emprise. There was no ice on the stream they’d crossed that morning.

Bull tried to pull himself back into his mind. Being able to focus would be a good sign of… they were in… the Emerald Graves. They were fighting giants. Bull had stepped between Adaar and a swing from a giant’s club.... She hadn’t seen it coming. He’d done what he needed to protect her.

***

He’d avoided the brunt of the blow, really. If the tree trunks the giants used as weapons had hit him head on he’d never had stood a chance. His arm was broken, and a stubby, splintering branch had caught him in the stomach, ripped the skin and punctured his gut in ways it really, really shouldn’t have.

He slept for what felt like months, fading often and waking only long enough to drink, water, broth and potions blurring together. He didn’t like to think that they used magic to keep him clean, but they must have. The tent, not his own tent, one smaller and darker, smelled more like elfroot and antiseptic than blood and bile, which was a small mercy. A field hospital was still a field hospital, but this one didn’t smell so much like death.

He blinked into consciousness more quickly each time, especially when someone else was in the tent with him. It was Dorian this time, not Adaar or some unfamiliar healer, and his habitual scowl warmed Bull’s heart.

“You’re awake,” Dorian observed. He sounded annoyed. “Despite your best efforts to the contrary, you have actually survived.”

“Great bedside manner you got there.” Bull grunted and shifted gingerly on the narrow cot. 

“I’ve spent some time perfecting it.” He gestured to a basin of water and a clean cloth on the camp table beside him. “I was instructed to clean your wound if you woke up.”

“Sure.” Bull felt fuzzy around the edges, very sharp in the center, where the gash was still healing. Magic made some things faster, but he’d always hated the itch-sting of flesh mending more quickly than it was meant to.

Dorian traced the edges of the wound, mouth tight. He was unusually gentle, running the cloth over the healing skin too softly so remove any real amount of dirt. The white fabric stained barely pink; Bull knew from experience that Dorian should use a firmer hand to clean the wound.

“Why’d the healers leave you in charge?” He asked. Dorian was always complaining about his lack of medical knowledge, and that their frequent travel interrupted his studies in the library.

“It’s the middle of the night. I was awake, I came to sit and let the surgeon sleep.” Dorian shrugged. “There’s been a watch on you at all hours for three days. Now that you’ve been declared beyond fear of immediate death, my meager herbal skills and excellent conversational ones have been employed to keep you company.”

“That’s nice of you.”

“Adaar volunteered me.” A deflection, but Bull didn’t push. “I clean your wounds, and give her updates when she returns.”

“Where’d she go?”

“Taking a bloody revenge on the giants, I believe.” Dorian frowned at him. “The poor girl blames herself, you know.”

Bull went to run a tired hand across his eyes, but the movement pulled at ropes of pain that ran all the way down his body. He tried not to show it, and probably failed. “She thinks everything is her fault.”

“Precisely.” Dorian’s face looked deeply lined in the flickering candlelight. Bull didn’t know how dark it was outside the tent. “Rather thoughtless of you to give her another thing to feel guilty over.”

He watched the side of Dorian’s face. “I’ve lived through worse, you know.”

The sound Dorian made was painful and pulled his shoulders forward like he was bracing against a blow. “You couldn’t see it.” He bent low over Bull’s chest, face obscured. “You nearly didn’t.”

“I’m the Inquisitor’s bodyguard. I’m here to take hits like these so she doesn’t have to.”

Dorian’s gaze snapped back to Bull, angry again. “You’re not disposable,” he growled, hands clenching. “You are not a weapon or a shield. You are a _person_.” he choked on the words.

Bull couldn’t meet his eyes.

“You really do have a shitty bedside manner.” The joke was weak, and Dorian ignored it.

“What would the Chargers do, if you died?” Dorian loomed over him, eyes stormy. “What would Krem and Adaar and-- and Sera do?”

“Keep going. You’ve said you’ve lost friends before.”

“Not to their own stupidity.” If he hadn’t been holding the cloth, his nails might have bitten into Bull’s skin. “You know how to block.”

“And I know that sometimes you can’t block.”

Dorian scowled and didn’t talk to him. He rinsed blood off the cloth and heated the basin of water again with magic.

He dipped the edge of the cloth into the steaming water and set to work with a firmer touch, though not enough that Bull felt any real pain. Well, more pain than he was already feeling.

“You’re mad at me.”

Dorian snorted. “What could possibly have given you that impression?”

Bull watched him. “I didn’t get hit by a giant’s maul on _purpose_ ,” he insisted. 

“Fool,” Dorian muttered in Tevene, and Bull wasn’t sure which one of them he was speaking to. A cricket chirped somewhere inside the tent, loud.

He could have been insulted, except that he knew people well enough-- he knew Dorian well enough-- to see that the anger was rooted in fear. Dorian hated feeling out of control. He didn’t like to be reminded that sometimes, things just happened. Really, it was a miracle that no one in Adaar’s inner circle had died yet, considering that they all spent their days in battle, preparing for battle, returning from or heading toward battle.

“Huh,” he said like it had just occurred to him. “You’re mad because you care about me! You old sap, just wait ‘till I tell Sera.”

“You must be feeling better.” Dorian’s tone lacked any sort of lightness. He still didn’t meet Bull’s eye. “What does it matter if I care? I haven’t had so many true friends in my life that I can let them go and get themselves killed, Iron Bull.” His voice dropped as he spoke, his shoulders fell, and even though Bull was the one recovering from a life-threatening injury, it hurt to see Dorian like that.

“I didn’t die, though, did I?” He reached out awkwardly and patted Dorian on the knee. “I’m alright, see?”

Dorian pressed the heels of his palms against his forehead and titled his head up with a heavy sigh. He didn’t always apply makeup on the road, and his eyes were unlined, just tired. They followed the candle shadows flickering across the canvas roof. “No, you didn’t die.”

Bull watched him. “I’ll be alright, Dorian.”

“You’d better be.” He covered Bull’s hand with his own.

***

Dorian went back to Skyhold when Bull did, pleading the need to continue his research of Tevene history. Adaar raised a knowing eyebrow at him, but ultimately said nothing, and continued west towards the Hissing Wastes with Vivienne and Cassandra rather than him and Bull.

The wagon train moved more slowly than they would have on horseback, but they were in no hurry. Bull let the healers bundle him into the back of a repurposed supply cart with little complaint, and Dorian bullied his way in most days to perch on a chest of linens with a book, feet propped against the back of the driver’s bench.

There wasn’t really much he could do for the Bull’s wound at that point, even if he’d had much skill at healing, but it was comforting to sit where he could see that for himself. He was waspish, but Bull weathered it with good humor, never remarking that Dorian didn’t need to spend the daylight hours cooped up with him and sniping, the nights in a shared tent, complaining of minor aches.

He’d made some friends among the scouts and infantry of the Inquisition, but none were in the group of men and women who rode alongside the carts. He thought they were mostly Leliana’s people. They were wary of both him and Bull, he knew, or at least standoffish, so the two of them kept mostly to themselves.

Dorian read to him from the book he’d brought, a “Compleat Historie” by some ancient Fereldan. If he spent more time criticizing the dead man’s understanding of cause and effect than actually reading, Bull didn’t seem to mind. He wished he could travel back through time and tell the author that the king’s daughter hadn’t fallen ill because a bird had flown into her room and gotten trapped for three days-- or maybe that was why, but really, it was more likely some illness the bird itself carried than that the bird was an omen _of_ the illness....

Bull laughed at him, a little, but it was an indulgent sort of laugh that set Dorian’s pulse fluttering for no good reason.

Relief; that was a good reason. He was relieved that Bull was well enough to laugh.


	6. Bound and Leashed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You can usually tell that a man is good if he has a dog who loves him."  
> \--W. Bruce Cameron

He watched Bull in the tavern, some nights. He nursed his ale and watched out of the corner of his eye, or across the table, and remembered. What would Bull do, he wondered, if Dorian told him that he dreamed about his hands, his mouth, his voice. They’d become friends. Truer friends than Dorian had any right to expect.

They hadn’t talked about it. Not that Dorian often talked about his dalliances after the fact. But he and Bull were often together, on the road, in battle and the training ring, planning at the war table with Adaar. They’d fucked, they’d fought, over Stitches of all people, and left it at that. They’d moved on, in some strange, silent agreement. Or, their friendship had. Dorian himself, not so much. They hadn’t talked about anything.

He had no idea where to start. 

***

Sharing a tent with Dorian was a new form of torture, and Bull knew quite a few. It had become a study in just how much was too much. How close was too close to sit, how long was too long to listen to him sing under his breath as he mended a tear in his robes, how focused was too focused to watch Dorian’s hands as he combed his fingers through his hair.

He kept the sides shaved, but the top was getting longer, and when they were in the field, he’d started to pull it into a rough bun rather than tame it with oils and gels. In the evenings when he read by magelight or firelight he’d leave it loose and twist one finger through a strand, over and over. Bull wanted to feel how soft it was. He remembered, partially, from that one night months ago, but he hadn’t realized then that he should have memorized it.

“You should braid your hair,” he said into the quiet of the tent. Dorian’s hand paused in its stroking. 

“I should?” Dorian squinted at him in the dim light.

“Or cut it,” he said, because it was true. Dorian looked affronted. “It’ll be a hazard in a fight if it gets into your eyes, or if someone gets close enough to grab it.”

“Oh.” Dorian put his book down. “That makes sense.” The silence was awkward, in the strange new way it had been lately. “I… don’t actually know how to braid hair,” Dorian admitted, as if he was telling Bull that he had no idea how to ride a horse. “Least of all my own. I could perhaps figure it out on someone else’s head.”

“I could teach you.” There was nothing unusual about the offer, but it sat uncomfortably between them. “Your hair isn’t the same texture as a Qunari’s, but the idea is the same.” Dorian nodded, and Bull shuffled a little closer in the tent. Dorian turned his back to Bull. A foolhardy thing, to put a Tal Vashoth in your blind spot. 

He reached out and ran his hands through Dorian’s hair. It was so different from Bull’s, which grew in tight, springy spirals that stood out from his head like lamb’s wool if he didn’t braid it. 

He combed it back over the crown of Dorian’s head, though there weren’t any knots in it. “I have a brush in my bag,” Dorian said, “if that would help.”

“No, this is fine.” He ran his fingers from the top of Dorian’s forehead to the base of his skull, then pulled Dorian’s hair into sections. He started at the front, and worked his way slowly back, relearning the patterns his hands already remembered. Dorian’s hair was thick and dark, and soft. Bull wanted to run his fingers through it the way Dorian had.

The braid came out a little lumpy, but it pulled all the loose hair in towards Dorian’s skull, and that would be enough to keep him just a little safer on the field. Dorian smirked at Bull over his shoulder when he ran a hand over it. “I can only imagine the statement this would make,” he chuckled.

Bull remembered his Tama braiding his hair when he was young, practicing with his year-mates, the rituals of calm and bonding that every Karataam formed. A statement indeed. 

Dorian pulled his fingers through the braid. “It’s coming loose.”

“You’re taking it apart,” Bull said, and lifted Dorian’s hand away from his head. “You’ll probably need something to tie the braid off so it doesn’t slip out on its own.”

Dorian held up the thin strip of leather he used as a bookmark, sliding a stray leaf that had found its way into the tent in its place between the pages. He turned slightly to offer it to Bull. “Will this work?”

Bull nodded, and turned it over in his hands instead of looking at Dorian’s small smile.

Dorian shook his hair out, the braid falling to pieces. “Do it again,” he said. “Neater, this time.”

He kept it in the braid for three days, though bits were whisping out of it by the end of the second. “Perhaps I’ll start a new style in the Inquisition,” he said haughtily the first time Sera saw it and nearly fell over laughing.

“It doesn’t look bad,” Adaar assured Dorian, “just different.” She raised an eyebrow at Bull when Dorian’s back was turned, and all he could do was shrug.

The braid finally came out when they found a campsite near a river and Dorian (and Sera, who’d twisted an ankle) refused to go another step.

Dorian’s hair curled when it was wet, and the braid tightened the curls further. Dorian pushed into the tent with tiny ringlets of hair falling across his forehead, and when he snorted and pulled at them to test the spring, something clenched in Bull’s chest. He stopped himself from reaching out just in time.

Dorian sat cross legged in front of Bull with an authoritative movement. “Braid it again,” he said. “Tighter.”

***

Dorian crossed his arms and glared at the shopkeeper. 

The greasy little man glared back. “I’m terribly sorry Ser,” he lied through his teeth, “we simply don’t carry dog collars in that size.”

“She’s a mabari! They’re the most common breed in Ferelden!” Dorian was about ready to set the fool on fire.

The shopkeeper sniffed disdainfully. “Than I suggest you go to Ferelden, Ser, because we do not have anything short of a noose that will fit your beast’s neck.”

Bull’s heavy hand on his shoulder was the only thing that kept Dorian from frying the oaf where he stood. Gemma’s hackles were up, much like Dorian’s own. “My friend and I will take our business elsewhere,” Bull said in his perfectly accented Orleasian, “and the rest of the Inquisition’s as well.”

The little Orleasian’s face paled and puckered as he realized the extent of his blunder, and Dorian had the distinct satisfaction of sweeping out of the shop with his head held high. It had been ages since he’d had occasion for a good indignant sweep.

“Is there no store in the entirety of Val Royeaux that can deal with dogs larger than _lap-sized_?” He complained to Bull as they wandered down a sidestreet. “How hard can it be to find a collar in this town?”

Bull paused in his examination of a florist’s wares. “Not that hard, but-- Well. I’ve got a suggestion.”

“ _Do_ you.”

Bull’s suggestion was tucked in a little corner a few blocks from the main thoroughfare. There was no sign to mark the entrance to a shop, just a discrete bronze plaque beside the doorknob, reading “Le Petit Favori.” Dorian’s suspicions were confirmed.

“Just let me do the talking, okay?”

“I’m hardly some fainting naif, Bull.” Gemma nudged at his hand. “I’ve been in sex shops before.”

“The kind that sells collars?”

“Yes, the kind that sells collars.” He ruled against elaborating, because, well… Tevinter.

The interior was, in many ways, very similar to its cousins in the Imperium, though the color scheme tended towards blues and pinks rather than the dramatic red and black of Tevinter, and the proprietor met them at the door.

Even with her mask obscuring her expression, she clearly had no idea what to do make of a Tal Vashoth, a Vint and mabari walking into her little shop. Maybe she thought she was the punchline of some joke. Maybe they all were.

Dorian swept an aristocratic bow. “Madame,” he declared, “I have come to you in desperation.”

Madme du Lac was delighted by the novelty of his request. She called in three assistants and sat Bull and Dorian on a spindly little couch in her own office, and paraded before them a staggering array of collars not actually intended for dogs.

She brought a tray of tiny cakes for them and a bowl of water for Gemma, and regaled them with tales of her profession. “All day, monsieurs, every day! I need a cock shaped just like my lover’s! Do you have blindfolds that you can wear under a masque? Where can I find the exact shade of lipstick that my grandmother wore in this portrait painted eighty years ago? It is so nice to have a change of pace sometimes, monsieurs. You are like a breath of fresh air to me!”

Bull was partial to a calfskin collar dyed pink and studded with little glass gems, because of course he was. Dorian thought, privately, that it was a bit gauche. Madame du Lac thought the red leather and spikes fit Gemma’s intimidating visage.

He eventually got them to agree on sturdy black leather, braided and adorned with simple white stitching. It had an understated appeal that Dorian thought even Vivienne would approve of. Gemma sniffed it and wagged her stump of a tail, and the matter was settled.

Madame du Lac led them back into the main store. “Now, monsieurs, you must allow me to give you a gift, as a thank you for bringing me such fun.” She talked over their slightly awkward protestations. “Hush, hush, mes choux, Madame du Lac is never wrong about these things.”

She glanced between them with a sly grin visible under the silver and blue mask. Dorian could feel his cheeks heating.

“Let us see…Oh! I have just the thing!” she bustled behind a curtain, and came back with an armful of silken black cord. She held it up first against Dorian’s arm, and then the Iron Bull’s. “Yes! It is perfect. It compliments both your complexions exquisitely. And there is plenty of it, you see? Good for any way you choose to tie it, yes?” She smiled brightly and held it out to Dorian.

He sputtered helplessly. “Madame, we can’t-- that is, we aren’t--”

“Of course we can, Dorian!” Bull took the cord with a grin and a painful one-eyed wink at Dorian. “You heard the lady; Madame du Lac is never wrong!” 

She beamed, and Dorian followed her to the till, defeated. Bull wandered off into another corner of the store, vanishing around the corner. “Would you like to wait for him?”

Dorian shook his head. “Who knows how long he’ll stay in here, Madame. I wouldn’t want to cut his fun short.”

“Ah, of course.” She tapped the side of her mask’s nose. “Perhaps he will find a little surprise for you.”

Dorian could hardly correct her assumptions _now_. “Perhaps he will.”

She smiled again. “Then you should have a surprise for him as well.” she bent down behind the counter and shuffled about for a moment before she came up with a little parcel the same light blue color as the walls of the shop. “They will fit perfectly,” she assured him. “And Monsieur The Iron Bull will like them as well. Madame du Lac is never wrong.”

Dorian took the parcel and pulled the paper cautiously apart. He was not surprised to find a pair of white satin… well, “smallclothes” was a generous description. He wished he had ice to put on his burning cheeks. “Merci, Madame,” was all he managed to say.

“But of course, monsieur. Your man is a handsome one, no? A kind smile. Don’t let him stray. Or, well, no further than you’ve agreed is fun.” She grinned and sent him and Gemma on their way.

He unwrapped the parcel fully in the privacy of his room in the inn. The panties, that was the only word for them, were adorned with tiny gold ruffles that really were quite fetching. He briefly entertained the idea of wearing them, and finding out if Madame du Lac would be right about Bull liking them. 

What a fool he was.

He picked up the little card that had been wrapped in the paper alongside the gift. _Madame du Lac_ , it said simply, _distributor of swords_.

***

Dorian was going soft, living in the south. That had to be it. He’d never had so many friends. It was exhausting, having this many people to worry about.

Sometimes Dorian would sit in the tavern with Sera, or drink tea with Vivienne, or hear Leliana’s voice from his nook in the library, and think, _I watched you die. I watched tainted lyrium eat you from the inside out, in a future that never happened._

Sometimes he’d look at Blackwall talking horses with the stablemaster, or Solas painting his frescos in the rotunda, or Varric holding court at his table in the great hall far more often than Adaar ever sat in her throne, and think _I know your greatest fear. I know what haunts your dreams at night, what demons pull out of your mind._

Sometimes he’d sit up late in the tent they always shared and watch Bull sleep and think _I can’t lose you. You’re not even mine, and I can’t lose you._

He’d fallen ass over tit into the Fade, the actual, physical, fucking Fade, and the first thought that he’d had was _Thank the Maker Bull isn’t here._

Oh, it had been awful, no doubt. Harrowing, even, if one were to make some terrible sort of joke.

But his selfish nature apparently didn’t extend far enough to wish the Fade upon Bull, even if Dorian preferred his familiar bulk and axe to the unknown quantities of Wardens and Champions. 

Without Bull beside him he’d turned to prayer. _I shall not be left to wander the drifting roads of the Fade, for there is no darkness, nor death either, in the Maker's Light, and nothing that He has wrought shall be lost._ They’d find their way out. Somehow.

Not even the depths of his soul were hidden in the Fade’s twisting green mist. It wasn’t surprising. His entire being, all his failures, summed up in one word. It was very nearly insulting. 

But back in Skyhold, warm, dry, and mostly drunk, he thought he might understand perfectly.

Tempting: the many, many drinks. Tempting: Adaar’s trusting smile. So, so tempting: The Iron Bull’s hand, close to his own.


	7. You Can Lead a Dog to Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...But you can't make her drink.

It was the Antivan sip sip again; Dorian thought the name ridiculous, but it was accurate. The slick taste of it always made his tongue burn.

It made Bull laugh, when Dorian was flushed enough for his skin to show it. He dropped an arm around Dorian’s shoulders and leaned in close. It was friendly, Dorian told himself, _don’t read into it_. Bull’s other arm was around Dalish’s shoulder, his smile broad and open and meant for everyone.

Sera was on Dorian’s other side, watching Addar with Varric and the Chargers while pretending not to watch. Dorian was sympathetic.

He was leaning towards Bull while pretending not to, sipping at his drink in order to cover the light tremble in his fingers. It was ridiculous. There was no need for _nerves_ in the Herald’s Rest. His friends were around him, happy and whole, give or take a scar or five. The Inquisition had saved the Empress and Adaar had sparkled at the Orlesian court. The books he’d convinced Helisima to get copied and rebound should be arriving soon, an incremental improvement to the library.

There was perhaps, a reason to be annoyed. Her name was Chantelle, and she’d ridden into Skyhold that morning with the rest of a group of chevaliers, escorting some gift or message from the Empress. She’d been sitting with the Chargers all evening.

Dorian wasn’t sure if he was more jealous that Bull had complimented her dawnstone-capped scabbard or that the rest of his friends took to her far more quickly than they’d warmed up to him. He decided it was time to leave when she actually got Skinner to laugh.

When he stood up he was forced to steady himself with a hand on Bull’s shoulder, and the grin Bull turned on him had soft, familiar edges. Dorian smiled back and said his goodnights, made his way back towards his room. He’d read for a while, perhaps. He’d found an old Tevene transcription of Rivaini folk songs, and while the commentary was cringeworthy, the actual content was fascinating.

He didn’t realize that Bull had followed him out of the tavern until he was crossing the little Chantry garden. “Early, isn’t it?” Bull asked. Both moons were up, one waxing, one full.

“Perhaps I’m getting old.” Dorian shrugged. “And the tavern’s smelled of horses since those chevaliers came to stay. They’re a loud group.” He wasn’t being very gracious. The Orlesians had paused only to pay their respects to Adaar before they’d flooded the bathhouse en masse.

“Looking for peace and quiet, then?”

“If such a thing were to exist.” He shrugged. “Would you care to join me?” It wasn’t out of the question. Bull had acceptable opinions on most books, he’d found. They’d spent mostly-silent evenings reading by the fire on the road, an afternoon or two in the library. There wasn’t that much difference between his little room and a tent, was there?

“Got anything to drink?” Bull asked as they walked together.

“A bottle of Aggregio Pavali, but I was saving it for some sort of occasion.”

“Let’s open it. Make it an occasion on our own.” Bull’s arm was back on his shoulder, where it so often was, lately.

Dorian ducked out from under it. He _wanted_ , but he wasn’t allowed.

***

Bull watched Dorian slip up the stairs slightly ahead of him, and sighed.

Dorian heard him, and turned, a sharp frown on his face. “You needn’t feel obligated to keep me company.” 

“You shouldn’t feel obligated either.” They stood three steps apart, close enough that Bull could have reached out and taken Dorian’s hand. He flexed his fingers at his sides.

“Why did you follow me?” There was something frustrated in the question, like Bull had done something that genuinely vexed him. He couldn’t think of what. Dorian’s expression was shadowed by the flickering torch behind him. “Surely your boys would like to see more of you. And what if Chantelle--”

Bull laughed. He’d seen Dorian eying her like she was about to steal his friends and take them all back to Orlais with her.

Dorian crossed his arms. “You’re not getting any wine at this rate, even if you do come to my room.”

“That’s fine.” Bull took a step closer to him. “Not really wine that I want anyway.”

He hadn’t meant it the way it sounded, but they both paused.

Qunari didn’t dream, but Bull _remembered_ , what it was like to have Dorian in his hands, under his lips. The memory hung between them.

“ _Really_ ,” Dorian said, exasperated. “Don’t tease me like that, Bull. An irate mage is no--”

It all slotted into place, and Bull took a firm step towards Dorian. His mouth closed with a tiny click as Bull drew level with him. 

“Tease you?” Dorian’s eyes flicked to Bull’s lips, and how come he’d never noticed that before? He wondered if Dorian was blushing and was sorry he couldn’t see it. “How am I teasing you?” 

Dorian stared at him like he’d started speaking ancient Elvhan, breathing hard. “Bull,” he said tightly, “If you’re playing some sort of joke on me, it isn’t amusing.”

Bull put a hand gently on Dorian’s chin, tilting his face just slightly up. He looked at Bull with his brow furrowed, a question in the crinkle between his eyes. He looked, remarkably, a little frightened.

He kissed Dorian, soft, like he had the first time, and Dorian made a quiet noise in the back of his throat. He stood very still, but lifted one hand slowly to Bull’s shoulder. Bull leaned back, and Dorian swayed a little towards him, eyes closed. They way they opened, slowly, and pinned Bull with a focused, searching stare made him certain he’d done the right thing.

Dorian smiled cautiously, and something in Bull’s chest loosened and tightened all at once. Corypheus could have chosen that moment to walk in the front gates of Skyhold, and Bull wouldn’t have cared. He pressed his lips to Dorian’s again, and this time Dorian grabbed at him and pulled him closer. Bull’s hand landed on Dorian’s chest, over his racing heart, and Dorian clutched his fingers and kept the there. He drank in the way Dorian leaned into him, the way he smelled, like woodsmoke and citron, sweet and sharp and entirely himself.

“I think I’m going to open that bottle,” Dorian said quietly, hands not moving from Bull’s own. “Or perhaps I already have, and I’m lying on my floor, drunk and hallucinating.”

Bull chuckled, and watched an answering smile broaden on Dorian’s face. “What if we skipped the bottle? Then when it’s still full tomorrow morning you can have proof.”

“What a scientific mind you have, Bull,” Dorian said approvingly. “But surely I’ll have more proof than that.”

Bull remembered how he’d left Dorian asleep in the morning, and wondered if he could have changed the entirety of the past few months by waking him. Well, he wouldn’t be making that mistake again. Dorian led him up the stairs, fingers laced between his own.

Gemma was less than pleased to be kicked out of Dorian’s warm, small bed, but Bull didn’t care. Dorian seemed only slightly more apologetic, and nearly closed the door on her tail. He leaned against it and regarded Bull, sitting on his bed, with a suddenly guarded expression.

“You okay?” Bull asked.

“Why now?” Dorian’s painted nails tapped against the door, a nervous gesture. “What’s changed, all of a sudden?”

“Nothing’s changed.” He wasn’t interested in skirting around it any more. “I’ve always wanted this. I just figured out I could have it.”

Dorian took a deep breath and a small step towards him. “What is it, exactly, that you want?”

“You.” He held out a hand, and Dorian took it, allowing Bull to tug him closer. He stood between Bull’s knees and studied his face. Bull looked steadily back, watching Dorian make his decisions. “However you want.” 

Dorian traced Bull’s jaw with a fingertip, looked into his eye. “However I want?” His eyes narrowed teasingly. “Even if I want you tied up and open on the bed so _I_ could fuck _you_ this time?”

“Sure, why not?” Dorian looked shocked that he’d agreed. “And afterwards we can talk about the books you’re adding to the library, and how Gemma will probably wind up with puppies if she keeps hanging about the kennels.” He turned his face against Dorian’s palm and pressed a kiss into the soft skin there, feeling the calluses that came with staffwork. “I want you, Dorian. All of you.”

Dorian watched him, searchingly, for the time it took Bull to count ten heartbeats, then let out a shaky breath. “You have me.” His fingers curled against Bull’s cheek. “Maker help me, you do.” Dorian leaned down and kissed him, and it was like everything made sense.

Bull pulled him onto the bed, pressed him against the pillows and grinned down at him. Dorian laughed, and then shivered when Bull leaned down to bite at the side of his neck. Bull combed his hands through Dorian’s hair and let Dorian wrestle with his shirt, then Bull’s harness, until he tossed it all aside and grabbed Bull’s face to kiss him again.

Sex was good, Bull had always thought, but trust was better. Dorian’s hands were strong where they gripped his shoulders, his body solid under Bull’s and his eyes closed, creased at the edges when he smiled.

He smiled often, and it made Bull smile to see it. He focused on finding all the parts of Dorian that he’d been missing, that seemed much clearer now. The mole on Dorian’s hip that seemed like a deliberate match to the one on his cheek. The soft hair on his chest and stomach, the way he sighed when Bull found a particularly sensitive spot.

Dorian did fuck him, eventually, when they’d spent an uncountable number of minutes touching each other. They didn’t bother to tie Bull down, but he was held in place by Dorian’s eyes and hands, and the sound of his name on Dorian’s lips. 

They fell asleep tucked close together, backwards on the bed so that Bull had space for his horns. He woke up with Dorian still curled around him, breathing soft and steady, and didn’t move until he blinked into wakefulness as well.


	8. Bark at a Crow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me."  
> \-- Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

Sera had decided the night was too warm to spend in the tavern, and Bull had to admit the late spring breeze was nice. She rounded up Blackwall, Dorian, Varric and a scout that Bull had trouble naming, and pulled them up onto the wall. Bull followed. The six of them sat on the battlements, passing around a bottle of something potent and clear that Varric said the dwarves made from mushrooms. They had been passing it. It had landed with Bull a few minutes ago and no one else seemed interested in drinking any more.

Dorian chuckled at Varric’s rambling story, and leaned his head back against the wall. Bull stuck his legs straight out in front of him and leaned back on his hands, watching the stars behind swift-moving clouds. The torchlight drowned the faintest out, and the Iron Bull remembered darker nights on Seheron, when the stars were crisp even in the heat, the brightest things around on the new-moon nights that were the Fog Warriors’ favorites. The drifting smoke from the tavern’s chimney reminded him of the muggy jungle haze. He blinked, and the moment was gone. He was back on the wall, in the biting almost-summer mountain air.

Dorian stretched his hand out toward Bull, fingers brushing gently across the side of his hip. Bull chuckled and pressed the bottle into his hand. Dorian wasn’t a lightweight, but he had a habit of pushing his limits a bit too far. He’d already nodded off twice, even with cold stone as a pillow.

Dorian’s fingers grasped at the cool glass for a moment before sliding up and onto Bull’s wrist. He slipped the bottle out of Bull’s hand and replaced it with his own, his fingers fitting between Bull’s and the back of his hand pressing against Bull’s palm. His face stayed tipped upwards, eyes closed like he was still asleep.

***

“Your knee’s hurting you, I can tell.” Dorian was an attentive lover in more ways than one, and had assigned himself responsibilities for Bull’s aches. It would have been sweeter if he weren’t quite so sanctimonious about it. “You shouldn’t push yourself so hard during training.”

“My boys need to be ready when we go to the Arbor Wilds.” Bull knew he sounded petulant. They’d had this argument before.

“You’re no good to anyone if you can’t walk.” Dorian clambered off the bed and crossed the room to the washbasin. “Imagine! What if we meet a dragon in the Wilds and you can’t even fight it?”

“You’d just have to tell me about the fight. In _detail_.” 

Dorian rolled his eyes affectionately. “At least let me look after it a little, if you won’t go down to the healers.”

He brought a jug of water and a clean cloth to the bed, and Bull watched him as he brushed the cloth first over his own hands, then Bull’s. Dorian bent his head away from Bull’s face, perhaps to hide his expression, perhaps simply to concentrate on the task he’d set himself. His hands were gentle as he swiped at Bull’s stomach and thighs; his fingers rested softly against the edges of Bull’s newest scar.

Dorian worried about a lot of things. Bull was still getting used to being on the list.

He put his hand on Dorian’s leg, startling him out of whatever reverie he’d fallen into. The candlelight was reflected brightly in Dorian’s eyes when he looked at Bull. “Everything okay?” Bull asked.

Dorian smiled, a tiny quirk of his lips. “No, but things could always be worse.” He ran the cloth down to Bull’s knee, turning away from him.

“You can tell me, if you want.”

His hand brushed over Bull’s kneecap, tracing the scars. “Do you ever wonder,” he said slowly, looking at his fingers against Bull’s skin, “about-- no, never mind.”

Bull caught his hand, brought it his lips. “Probably. I wonder about a lot of things. How you get your nail laquer to last this long, for instance.” He’d used to think it made Dorian’s fingers look constantly bruised, like blood was trapped under the nails. He knew now that the color shimmered in the right light, lying on top of the nails like paint.

Dorian smiled, brushed his thumb across Bull’s stubble. “Magic, of course. You need to shave.”

“What do you wonder if I wonder?” Dorian rolled his eyes and leaned down to kiss him. Bull held him close with a hand in his hair.

He held him when he drifted off to sleep and wondered if Dorian worried about the future too.

***

It slipped out, like so many things, after sex, the room warm and dark around them. Dorian kissed the side of his face with tired inaccuracy and burrowed beneath the covers. Tacked onto the end of a sentence, almost swallowed when he yawned, he barely it noticed until he opened his eye and saw Dorian’s curious expression.

He felt the twist of guilt in his stomach, and wondered if he was still allowed to use that word, out from under the Qun. If he was allowed to use it for _this_.

“What does that mean?” He expected the question. Dorian collected information like a magpie, hoarding it away; knowing for the pleasure of knowing. He’d been squeezing Bull for Qunlat words for weeks now, between his hours-long immersions in dusty tomes of Tevinter history. He’d started peppering his curses with Qunlat, “to practice conjugation,” but mostly to make Adaar laugh.

Bull searched for the right words, Dorian waited patiently, watching Bull with his researcher’s eyes. “There’s not an easy translation. It’s a lot of things. It’s… a role, under the Qun. A title you can give to another Qunari, a personal one. Physically, literally, it’s the center of your chest,” he put a hand on Dorian’s sternum, watched it rise and fall under his fingers. “But when Kadan is a person, it means protection, honor, loyalty, comfort.”

Dorian didn’t say anything. He watched Bull like he was reading a book, like the pauses when he groped for another word were pages turning.

“Krem’s Kadan, I knew a Beresaad on Seheron who was Kadan… it doesn’t mean just one thing. It means something like family, something like friend, something lasting.” That skirted too close to-- too close to something else. “See, there’s the Qun, the whole, and the self, the one, and the whole is made up of every individual, so Kadan is a representation, one leaf on the tree, one pavingstone in the road. You serve one, you serve the whole, you protect one, you protect the whole.” _You love one, you love the whole._ But he knew how loaded that word was for humans, how loaded it must be for Dorian.

He didn’t want to be the one who tied Dorian down with ropes he couldn’t escape; he didn’t want to weigh Dorian down with something he didn’t want, not from Bull, not really.

Beside him, Dorian’s face curled in a slow, sweet smile. “Why, that’s very nearly poetic.” He wrapped a hand around Bull’s where it stretched across his chest, pulling it gently upward so he could kiss Bull’s fingers. Tired as they both were after riding most of the day and the long evening they’d shared, his eyes glinted and Bull felt heat curling in his gut. “Teach me more,” Dorian said in Qunlat. He enunciated the words carefully against Bull’s hand, lips brushing his skin.

“What do you want to know?” Bull watched Dorian’s mouth.

“If this is kadan,” one brown hand rested on Bull’s chest, touch tracing and light. “Then what’s this?” His hand trailed up to curl briefly around Bull’s neck. “This?” It drifted downward, and Bull grinned.

He rolled onto Dorian, pinning his hands against the mattress and biting a sharp almost-kiss into the base of his throat. 

Dorian gasped and laughed, pressing his body against Bull’s. “Well? I’m ever so eager to learn.”

***

 _So,_ Dorian watched Bull’s chest rise and fall, looked critically for any signs that the travel back from Orlais had aggravated old wounds, _I suppose this means he loves me, after his own fashion._

That was alright. He supposed he cared for Bull in his own way as well.

And if it wasn’t like a novel, if there were no dramatic declarations, no frantic races against time or ridiculous speeches, that was just as well. They were practical men, brought together only by the literal apocalypse. In the face of everything else, what did it matter if a Tevinter exile loved a Tal Vashoth fool? 

Who cared what words they used for it, when this had happened so quietly, so easily, after all the other things that had plagued them both? Dorian relished the feeling of something as simple as himself and Bull, together in the night and in the morning too.

Undeniably, there was something of a thrill to it. He might not be first in Bull’s affections, but he merited a place all the same. He had a _title_ , a name no one else would think to call him. Dorian was selfish enough to take that gladly. It was more than he’d expected from another person in years.

Gemma, never one to be ignored for long, whined at the door. The wind whistled in the cracks of Bull’s barely-repaired ceiling. With only a little muttering, Dorian hauled himself out of bed and opened the door just enough for the dog to push her way in. Her fur smelled like woodsmoke, which probably meant she’d been dozing at Varric’s feet in the great hall until he took himself off to bed as well. He was working on a history (if that was the right word) of the Inquisition, and had taken to keeping utterly unreasonable hours. Dorian knew this because he often passed Varric in the hall on his way back from his own unreasonable hours, which he kept in the library.

Bull stirred at the brush of freezing air, frowning fuzzily at the door. “Are you leaving?” he asked.

“Of course not.” He slipped gratefully under the covers, pressing up against Bull’s warmth. Bull tugged the blankets up to Dorian’s chin, smoothed them across his chest with a smile. “I’m not going anywhere, amatus.”

Bull’s hand stopped its slow slide from his throat to his shoulder, and Dorian squeezed his eyes shut. Bull was very still next to him. “Dorian,” he said, and his voice dropped all the cold of the night outside into his heart. Bull’s cautious tone sounded halfway between frightened and gentling, like Dorian had just declared a very serious and immediate intention to scale the exterior walls. 

Well, perhaps it did matter if he loved Bull, because the sudden realization that Bull might not have meant that he loved Dorian was shockingly painful. It mattered. Dorian was in love with the man next to him, and he choked on the idea that he might be alone in it.

Bull pushed himself up on his elbow, took Dorian’s jaw in his hand to turn his face. Reluctantly, Dorian opened his eyes. “What?” he went for casual, hit defensive. It was out now, what could he do?

Bull kissed him. The lightest brush of lips against his, there and gone. “Amatus,” Bull whispered, and pulled Dorian’s scattered thoughts back in like iron to a lodestone. Strange to hear any Tevene in a cold Fereldan night, stranger still for it to be that word from this man. He wanted… “That mean what it sounds like?”

“I find that my mother tongue tends to be less ambiguous about these things than yours.” He was surprised by his own glibness. “The closest translation into Trade makes it both a noun and an adjective, but Tevene grammar--”

“I know about Tevene grammar.” Bull was so close, leaning over him, though his hand on Dorian’s chin remained the only point of contact. “What does it mean to you?”

“This is unfair.” Bull would draw it out of him eventually, but it seemed important to protest, to defend this last point of dignity before Bull laid him entirely bare. “I let you ramble about… about pavingstones and philosophy.” Bull’s thumb traced the edge of his jaw, the callus on the pad of his finger catching slightly in Dorian’s stubble. It was painfully distracting. “Don’t--” _don’t read into it_ , but of course Bull would, and of course he’d be right.

“Amatus,” Bull said again, drawing out the word, exploring the edges of it. It sounded too sweet on his tongue, too fragile. Dorian’s heart ached. “I like it.”

“Are you sure?” Was it better or worse that it was too dark to see Bull’s expression? “It means-- well-- there’s a certain connotation of possessiveness, I suppose. _My_ amatus.”

“Well shit,” Bull said, voice low. “I like that even better.” He kissed Dorian again, and for that moment, nothing in the world mattered half as much.


End file.
